Prevalence of nomophobia among college students in Bishnupur District of Manipur; a cross-sectonal study

Abstract

Over the last decade mobile phones have become the most pervasive devices, which have morphed into smartphones with advance features. Nomophobia, the fear of being without mobile phone, has become a growing concern especially among youth. This study aimed to assess the prevalence of nomophobia among college students in Bishnupur District of Manipur.A cross-sectional study was conducted from 23 December 2019 –23 January, 2020 after ethical approval. A validated nomophobia questionnaire (NMP-Q) was used among college students. Data was entered in IBM SPSS version 21.0 and presented in descriptive statistics. Chi-square test was used to test the significance of association between proportions. A p value of < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.10.5% of participants had mild nomophobia. 60.4% had moderate nomophobia, 27.9% had severe nomophobia.Nearly 9 out of 10 students were nomophobic. There was no association of nomophobia with socio-demographic characteristics like age, gender, current place of stay, type of family, family income, age of start of mobile phone use, number of mobile phones possessed, amount of money spent on recharge.