Prevalence of smartphone addiction and its correlates in a sample of Egyptian university students

2021 ◽  
pp. 002076402110429
Author(s):  
Tarek Okasha ◽  
Ahmed Saad ◽  
Islam Ibrahim ◽  
Mahmoud Elhabiby ◽  
Sherien Khalil ◽  
...  

Background: Smartphone addiction is considered currently as a public health concern especially among university students. Aim: The study assesses the prevalence of smartphone addiction and its sociodemographic and psychiatric correlates among Egyptian university students. Methods: A random sample of 1,380 undergraduate Egyptian university students from different universities were assessed using the smartphone addiction short scale, Beck depression Inventory, Beck anxiety Inventory, Pittsburgh sleep Quality Index, and Columbia suicide severity scale. Results: About 59% are smartphone addicts without any gender difference, we find a highly significant relation between smartphone addiction and depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance, smoking, and suicide. Conclusion: our study adds to the existing literature regarding the magnitude of smartphone addiction and its relationship with different psychiatric disorders.

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shadrack Muma ◽  
Dickens Omondi Aduda ◽  
Patrick Onyango

Abstract Background Computer vision syndrome is a multi-factorial condition of the eye that results in symptoms of stress and discomfort among computer users. It causes chronic vision-related morbidity and reduced work productivity. Ninety percent and 75% of computer users globally and in Africa respectively suffer from CVS. It is an insidious chronic condition that however, has hitherto received little attention, both by health providers as well as computer users. Also, it is likely to be under diagnosed as it mimics other eye conditions. The risk factors for CVS include prolonged period of electronic device use and glare. In Kenya, lack of awareness of the disease is a key barrier to early detection, health seeking and use of interventions. The burden of CVS and how much computer users in learning institutions are aware of and perceive CVS remains unknown.Methods This study adopted cross-sectional study design to determine the level of awareness, perception of CVS, uptake of preventive measures by students at Maseno University. In total, we administered questionnaires to 384 randomly selected students.Results The mean age was 19.5 years (SD= 0.747) with 18-24 years as the modal age group. Females comprised 51.3% (n=197) and males 48.7%. Participants who had at least 5 symptoms of CVS were 60.4% (n= 232). Awareness level was classified as low in 47.8%; medium level in 38.2% and high level in 13.8% of respondents . Sixty percent of respondents did not perceive CVS as an issue of public health concern compared to 39.8% who perceived CVS as an issue of public health concern ( p=0.001). In terms of precautionary measures, only duration of computer use (46.2%, p = 0.001 ) were practiced. The study results show that at least 3 out of 5 students have at least five symptoms of CVS, whereas awareness of the disease and related risks remain low.Conclusion The results of the present study indicate that CVS is a less recognized health concern among university students. Consequently, screening for the disease sensitization of students on CVS and awareness campaigns to improve early recognition and diagnosis of disease as well as uptake of interventions is recommended.


Author(s):  
Bethan Evans ◽  
Charlotte Cooper

Over the last twenty years or so, fatness, pathologised as overweight and obesity, has been a core public health concern around which has grown a lucrative international weight loss industry. Referred to as a ‘time bomb’ and ‘the terror within’, analogies of ‘war’ circulate around obesity, framing fatness as enemy.2 Religious imagery and cultural and moral ideologies inform medical, popular and policy language with the ‘sins’ of ‘gluttony’ and ‘sloth’, evoked to frame fat people as immoral at worst and unknowledgeable victims at best, and understandings of fatness intersect with gender, class, age, sexuality, disability and race to make some fat bodies more problematically fat than others. As Evans and Colls argue, drawing on Michel Foucault, a combination of medical and moral knowledges produces the powerful ‘obesity truths’ through which fatness is framed as universally abject and pathological. Dominant and medicalised discourses of fatness (as obesity) leave little room for alternative understandings.


2004 ◽  
Vol 8 (32) ◽  
Author(s):  

Resistance to antimicrobials has become a major public health concern, and it has been shown that there is a relationship, albeit complex, between antimicrobial resistance and consumption


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (12) ◽  
pp. 788-791
Author(s):  
Bethany Rose

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is any process that injures or removes part or all of the external female genital organs for non-medical reasons. FGM is a growing public health concern in the UK because of an increase in migration from countries where it is widely practised. Education on FGM for nurses is key to supporting women who have undergone the practice, as well as safeguarding girls and women who are at risk. Nurses must understand the history and culture of FGM as well as the long-term health complications to be able to support affected women both professionally and sensitively.


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