Text Neck Syndrome and Associated Risk Factors: Prevalence in Medical Students

Abstract

Text neck depicts repeated stress injury and irritation of neck due to smart phone usage or other handheld devices over a sustained period. Objective: To evaluate the prevalence of text neck syndrome in medical students of Abbottabad. Methods: Descriptive cross sectional study was conducted at various government and private medical colleges of Abbottabad. A sample size of 300 students was estimated suitable for the study calculated via Epitool, a total 300 students of age group 17-30 years were asked to fill 2 well- standardized questionnaires namely Neck Disability Index (NDI) & Nomophobia Pain Questionnaire(NPQ) after seeking informed consent. Convenient sampling technique was opted for data collection. The data was further analysed by using SPSS. Results: Among 300 subjects, 4.333% subjects showed mild nomophobia, 54% subjects reported moderate nomophobia, while 41.67% subjects had severe nomophobia. According to the Neck Disability Index (NDI), 6.333% subjects showed no disability, 41.67% subjects showed mild disability, 30% subjects showed moderate disability, 12.67% subjects showed severe disability while 0.333% subjects showed complete disability. There was significant positive correlation observed between NDI and NMP-Q with Pearson correlation co-efficient value of 0.88. Conclusions: The study revealed a high prevalence of Text Neck Syndrome in medical students, despite of their awareness and education, primarily due to gadget addiction.