Association of mobile phone use and day time sleepiness in students

Abstract

Background

Use of mobile phones extremely increased by all age groups in recent years. In fact it is very difficult to found a person who is not using a mobile phone. The usage is very high in students. This has negative impact on sleep quality as the sleep duration was drastically reduced. This further causes day time sleepiness.

Objective

The present study was undertaken to observe the association between the mobile phone use and day time sleepiness.

Methodology

19 apparently healthy male and female postgraduate dental students were included in the study after obtaining written informed consent. Total number of hours of mobile phone usage in a day was collected from the participants. Epworth sleepiness scale was used to assess daytime sleepiness. Permission was obtained to use the questionnaire. Pearson correlation Data was analyzed by SPSS 20.0. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to observe the correlation between the variables. Data was presented as Mean and SEM.

Results

The mean duration of mobile phone usage was 3.65±0.48 hours. The mean score of Epworth sleepiness scale was 10.26±0.63. The value of R is 0.4222. There was a weak positive correlation between the variables. The value of R², the coefficient of determination, is 0.1783.

Conclusion

There was positive correlation between the mobile phone use and day time sleepiness. We recommend further detailed studies in this area. Also recommend to limit the use of mobile phones to increase the sleep quality and reduce day time sleepiness for a better quality of life.