Effect of Cellphone on Quality of Life among Medical Students; A Cross-sectional Study

Aims: The aim of the current study is to find out the quality of life among the medical undergraduates who are addicted to cellphone use.

Study Design: Cross-sectional study

Place and Duration of Study: Study was conducted in private and public sector medical and dental colleges of Karachi from January 2019 to September 2019.

Methodology: The data had been collected through a set of questionnaire, which was pre-designed. Those students were included who were using smartphones for pleasure, communication or study purpose The data was entered into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22. For numerical variables mean with standard deviation were calculated and for categorical variables frequency and percentages were calculated.

Results: The mean age of the students surveyed was found to be 21.2 ±1.82 years. Majority of our research candidates were addicted to cell phone use. It was noted that more than 6 hours’ screen time daily was 29.75% while very unfortunate observation of less than 1-hour screen time was found in 6.25% of study participants. About 38.25% of our participants although addicted to screens agreed that this addiction is causing them to ignore their important things like study or family. Cell phone addiction is worsening day by day as 37.5% medical students confessed that they feel stressed when they do not use cell phones. About 76.75% medical students despite of being addicted to screens, confessed that this is causing them different health and social problems which they feel should be removed just by giving lesser time to the applications.

Conclusion: It can be concluded that the medical undergraduates who are addicted to their cellphones, having poor quality of life which is negatively affecting their health as well as their studies. There is a need to accept the problem and find out the best solution for it. Students should be aware of the effects of cellphone addiction on the quality of life.