Prevalence and Associated Factors of Smartphone Addiction Among Medical and Health Sciences University Students: A Cross-Sectional Study

In recent years, dependence on smartphones is seen to be the rise. Despite its numerous communicative affordances, past research suggests potential adverse effects when smartphones are over-used. The primary objective of this study was to estimate the preva-lence of Smart Phone Addiction (SPA) as it connects to smartphone usage and associated fac-tors among An-Najah medical and health sciences students in Palestine. A cross-sectional de-sign and convenient sampling technique were used to select eligible students from different programs in the faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the An-Najah National Universi-ty. Three hundred sixty-seven students were recruited. The Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version (SAS-SV) was used to explore the prevalence of SPA. The SPA prevalence was found to be 37.9% among medical and health sciences university students. In comparison to those in their fourth year or higher, prevalence among first-year students was highest (OR=0.17, p-value=0.022), representing a significant statistical difference. The daily duration of smartphone use in hours when compared with more than 4 hours and 2-4 hours revealed significant statistical differences with (OR=2.90, p-value=0.003). Other factors (age, gender, university program, cigarette smoking, study year, history of chronic diseases) had no statisti-cal differences when compared with the prevalence of SPA. The Prevalence of SPA was high when compared with other studies 37.9% among medical and health sciences university stu-dents globally. This high SPA was associated with first-year students and their use of smartphones (SP) for more than 4 hours. This study may shed some light on the prevalence of SPA and its relationship with socio-demographic and lifestyle factors in regions across Palestine.