TEXT NECK SYNDROME IN UNDERGRADUATE HEALTH SCIENCE STUDENTS FROM A UNIVERSITY IN THE WESTERN CAPE:A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY

T. Steyl¹, I.J. Irudayaraj¹

¹University of the Western Cape, Physiotherapy, Bellville, South Africa

Background: Cell phones are indispensable tools for the student population. Excessive exposure to these devices could lead to postural deformities that cause pain and decrease students’ quality of life. Secondary musculoskeletal pain due to text neck, a repeated stress injury sustained from excessive texting on handheld devices for long periods of time, could negatively impact the academic performance of university students.

Purpose: To determine the degree of cell phone addiction, functional disability and pain and its relationship with each other in undergraduate (UG) health science students from a university in the Western Cape.

Methods: A quantitative approach using a descriptive cross-sectional design was employed in the study. Stratified random sampling was used to select the participants from the 2021 year of enrollment. Data was collected using a self-developed socio-demographic questionnaire as well as valid and reliable scales, namely, the Nomophobia questionnaire (scores ranges from 20 = absence of nomophobia; 21-59 = mild level of nomophobia; 60-99 = moderate level of nomophobia to100-140 = severe nomophobia), the Numeric Pain scale (scores ranges from 0 = no pain to 10 = worst pain imaginable) and the Neck Disability Index (scores ranges from 0-4 = no disability, 5-14 = mild disability, 15-24= moderate disability to 25-34 = complete disability). Data was analyzed using SPSS version 28. Descriptive statistics were applied to summarise socio-demographic information. Inferential statistics were employed to determine any association between variables. Significance was set at p<0.05.

Results: A total of 157 students, 140 (89.2%) females and 17 (10.8%) males with a mean age of 21.7 (SD±4.14) years participated in the study. The majority of the participants enrolled in the Department of Physiotherapy (n=91; 58.0%).More than half of the participants (n=83, 52.9%)suffer from moderate nomophobia while 36.9% have severe nomophobia. No significant difference were found for nomophobia categories and gender (p=0.339). Seventy of the participants (44.6%) have no functional disabilitywhile 54.1% suffer from mild functional disability. Although no significant difference was found for functional disability categories and gender (p=0.831), significantly more males than females experienced neck pain at the time of data collection (χ²=9.667, p=0.046) and reported that their work was affected by their functional disability (χ²=8.211, p=0.042). More than a third of the students reported no pain at the time of data collection (n=59, 37.6%), while 17.2% and 15.3% experienced minimal and moderate neck pain respectively. No statistical significant gender difference was found for pain intensity (χ²=2.997, p=0.936).A significant moderate positive correlation was found between pain intensity and functional disability (r=0.312, p=0.000).A non-significant moderate positive correlation was found between pain intensity and cell phone addiction (r=0.348, p>0.05).Significant but weak positive correlations were found for cell phone addiction and functional disability.

Conclusions: Cell phone addiction is evident in the student population. Neck pain affectsmore than half of the study population’s functional ability.

Implications: The results of the study provide valuable evidence that can be used to assist with the development of measures to prevent the detrimental effects of text neck syndrome in the student population and increase the awareness thereof.

Funding acknowledgements: none applicable

Keywords:
Text neck syndrome
University
Students

Topics:
Musculoskeletal
Musculoskeletal: spine

Did this work require ethics approval? Yes

Institution: University of the Western Cape, South Africa

Committee: Biomedical Research Ethics Committee (BMREC)

Ethics number: (BM20/4/8)