Correlation of smartphone use addiction with text neck syndrome and SMS thumb in physiotherapy students

Abstract

Background:Young adults have grown up today with mobile phones as an evident part of their lives. Text neck syndrome and SMS thumb may occur due to repetitive use of hand held devices (HHDs) resulting in repetitive stress injury or an overuse syndrome while using their mobile phones or other electronic devices for prolonged periods of time. Our aim is to assess self reported addiction to smartphone use and correlate its use and musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) in neck and hand in young healthy adults. Methods:The study examined 100 healthy physiotherapy students of a college in Ahmedabad by random table sampling, in the age group of 20-25 years. Students were asked to fill a proforma with the questionnaires of Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS), Neck Disability Index (NDI), and Cornell Hand Discomfort Questionnaire (CHDQ) attached. Level of significance was kept at 5%. Spearman correlation coefficient was used to correlate between the SAS and NDI, and SAS and CHDQ respectively. Results:There was a predominance of females over males (females-76, males-24). Mean±SD of SAS, NDI and CHDQ was 102.49±22.15, 30±0.10 and 6.12±8.73 respectively. Spearman correlation coefficient showed a significant moderate positive correlation between both SAS and NDI (r=0.671, p<0.001) and between SAS and CHDQ (r=0.465, p<0.001). Conclusions: The study showed that musculoskeletal problems in neck and hand(predominantly thumb) can be seen in smartphone addicted students which may be short term initially but may later lead to long term disability.