Creating a Score to Assess Weighting Impacts of Smartphone Addiction among Health and Medical Students

Abstract

Aim of Study: This paper is aimed to introducing a new creating measurement score to estimating a significant of an extracted factors that reflects weighting of its components in terms of proposed studied domains for assessing status of impacts Smartphone addiction, in a way that achieving to the core of the evaluation process for new observation misuse of Smartphone among medical faculty students. Methods: A cross-sectional design using a convenient sampling method which were selected of data, of sample size 772 participants from different studying stages concerning of medical and health faculties in Kirkuk University. Smartphone addiction scale (SAS), Nordic questionnaires for the analysis of musculoskeletal symptoms and the severity of Digital Vision Syndrome (DVS) was measured using a twelvee-item was using. Data was analyzed using factor analysis of principle components method by using (SPSS) application, version 22. Results: The study sample included 347 males (44.9%) and 425 females (55.1%), with an average age of 21.09 ± 1.75. Primary assessments showed highly significant relationships (P<0.01) among the studied domains. The extracted factors revealed two dominant components, accounting for 67.22% and 32.78% of the total covariance, named the "Psycho-Socio Impact Factor" and "Physical Impact Factor," respectively. These findings offer a clear and robust understanding of the interrelation between the studied domains. Conclusions: Factor analysis identified two main factors: the psycho-socio factor, related to family, environment, and psychological aspects, and the physical impact factor, linked to vision and musculoskeletal health. These findings suggest that interventions for smartphone misuse should target these interconnected factors to reduce negative effects. Additionally, the research highlights the importance of these domains in developing health-related quality of life programs, awareness workshops, and research into acquired autism in children.