Prevalence and determinants of Nomophobia among medical undergraduates in North Kerala Prevalence And Determinants of Nomophobia Among Medical Undergraduates
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Abstract
Nomophobia, a form of anxiety disorder, has been found to be prevalent among young adults. This study aims to identify the determinants and prevalence of nomophobia among medical undergraduates in a private medical college in North Kerala. A cross -sectional study was done among 438 medical undergraduates sampled by convenience sampling. A self-administered questionnaire to assess nomophobia and its determinants was provided to participants. Analysis was done using SPSS version 23 software, and the chi-square test was used to test the associations between categorical variables. The prevalence of mild nomophobia was 15.1% (n=66), moderate nomophobia was 70.1% (n=307), and 13.9% (n=61) had severe nomophobia as per the nomophobia scale. The majority of participants aged 20–22 years (75.3%) reported higher levels of nomophobia compared to the 17–19 years group (7.7%) and those above 22 years (16.8%) [p value 0.006]. Hostellers (94.2%) reported higher levels of nomophobia compared to day scholars (6.1%) [p value 0.010]. Those who had spent more than 4 hours per day on smartphones and who had a single phone in hand had statistically significantly higher prevalence of moderate-severe nomophobia. Nomophobia is an emerging psychological condition among medical students as well. The young adults and children should be given awareness and off-screen time to limit the smart phone use.
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