Screen Time Related Musculoskeletal Symptoms among Adolescents: A Cross Sectional Survey in Twin Cities

Abstract

Background: The objectives were to evaluate the frequency of musculoskeletal symptoms related to screen time and to determine the mostly affected body parts with musculoskeletal symptoms Methods: A Cross-sectional survey was conducted on 150 students from February to May 2018 selected via convenience sampling technique. Data was collected from students of twin cities having screen time more than 3 hour’s using validated questionnaires including The Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire (NMQ) to assess musculoskeletal symptoms and self-structured questionnaire for screen time and demographics. Data was analyzed using SPSS v.21. Results: Mean age of the population was 15±2.7 years. Mean screen time score was computed as 6.45 hours with 10 hours highest screen time observed of 6 participants. Mean musculoskeletal involvement was computed as 85.3 % (n=128) in last 12 months of which 28.9% (n=66) had neck pain, 21.9% (n=50) had lower back pain whereas 14.9%, 11.4% had shoulder and upper back involvement. In last 7 days 25.7%, participants had pain in neck area and 18.3% in lower back. 83.5% participants didn’t visited physicians for their respective condition. significant relation of screen time was observed with the musculoskeletal symptoms. Conclusion: Screen time severely influence musculoskeletal symptoms especially neck and lower back muscle, presence of high number of musculoskeletal symptoms among adolescent is alarming and shows the need of adequate measures to address these problems