PREVALENCE OF NECK PAIN DUE TO PROLONG USE OF SMART PHONE AMONG UNIVERSITY STUDENTS OF FAISALABAD

Abstract

Introduction: All around the world, prolong use of electronic devices results in increase prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) of hand, wrist, forearm, arm and neck has been increasing. Neck pain is a fourth leading seed with disability. Neck pain may occur due to broad range of differential diagnosis like trauma, infection, malignancy which are life threatening diseases. There negative impact on physical and mental health is found to be associated with use of smart devices like mobile phones, laptops and computer. Mobile phone users adopt forward head posture while using smart phone for extended period of time, which may lead to neck pain.

Material & Methods: A total of 3000 students between 18-45 years of age using mobile phone for the duration ≥1 hour per day from different universities of Faisalabad gave response to questionnaires Confidential Smart Phone Usage and Neck Pain and Neck Disability Index. Students with neck pain due to any other medical condition excluded from study. Data was entered and analyzed through SPSS version 21 and Chi-square (χ2) test was applied to find out the association between pain and disability.

Results: This study showed that most of the participants (85.3%) experience neck pain. Playing games and texting was used more than calling and positively associated with neck pain. Majority of participants were used mobile phone for >4 hours and presents with moderate pain. In addition, a vast proportion 1377(45.9) of students with moderate disability had weekly pain.

Conclusion: The result showed that there is a high prevalence of neck pain among mobile phone users. Moreover,  prolonged use of mobile phone is strongly associated with neck pain and neck disability.