Cross-sectional survey of smartphone addiction and its relationship with personality traits among medical students

Abstract

Objective To understand the current smart phone addiction tendency (SPAT) in medical university students and relationship with personality traits. Methods A cross-sectional study from September 2019 to December 2019 selected medical students from Hubei University of China by cluster sampling. Questionnaires were administered to measure smart phone addiction tendency and personality traits. Results The prevalence of SPAT among 972 medical students was 24.3%. The prevalence was higher in students from one-child family than those with siblings (28.2% vs. 21.7%), and higher among students from urban families than those from rural ones (29.2% vs. 19.7%).Multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that extraversion and neuroticism were correlated with SPAT, with odds ratio and 95% confidence interval being equal to 1.070 (1.011–1.133) and 0.838 (0.795–0.844), respectively. Conclusions The prevalence of SPAT was high in medical college students. Extraversion and neuroticism were risk and protective factors for SPAT. Long duration phone use and a low number of physical workouts predicted high SPAT.