Prevalence of Musculoskeletal Pain Due to Smart Phone Usage Among High School Students-A Crosssectional Study

Abstract

In the past decade, mobile phone usage rates have increased and there have been concerns that the overuse of smart phones may contribute to various musculoskeletal (MSK) problems primarily in neck and shoulder region. The most reported complaint is pain that can be seen in many parts of the body, especially in neck. Objective: To check the prevalence of cervical pain and its association with smart phone usage among high school students. Methods: It was an observational cross-sectional study in which non-probability purposive sampling technique was used to collect data from high schools of Faisalabad. 105 subjects both male and female with musculoskeletal pain were included. The data were analyzed by SPSS version 23. Results: Females were found to have more pain (58.1%) compared to (41.9%) the males. 72.4% subjected recorded the moderate to severe pain measured on VAS. No association was found among disability score and gender and age with p-value > 0.005. Conclusions: There was no noticeable relationship between gender and age regarding pain intensity. Most variables showed an association with pain intensity indicating that there is a prevalence of cervical pain more than any other musculoskeletal pain in high school students due to smart phone usage.