Smartphone addiction, family characteristics and its other associated factors among adolescent psychiatric outpatients in Hospital Melaka / Dr Raja Sarah Raja Mudzaffar Shah

Background: Smartphone usage is rapidly increasing over the years among adolescent. Excessive smartphone use could lead to addiction. Smartphone addiction has become a recent concern because of its potential to cause significant impairment of adolescent life as well as causing adverse effects on their physical and psychological health. There were many studies done on normal adolescent, but there were limited studies done on adolescent psychiatric patients.
Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of smartphone addiction, to identify the associating factors of smartphone addiction as well as to determine the predictors of smartphone addiction among adolescent psychiatric patients in Hospital Melaka.
Methodology: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among 64 adolescent psychiatric patients attending Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinic, Hospital Melaka and their parents. Universal sampling was used in this study. The data was collected via self-administered questionnaires. The questionnaires used were socio-demographic characteristics of patients and their parents, and duration of screen time proforma, Smartphone Addiction Scale – Short Version, as well as Asian Family Characteristic Scale. Descriptive analysis was performed, followed by bivariate analysis and multiple logistic regression analysis.
Results: Of the total 64 patients, 32 (50%) adolescent psychiatric patients has high risk of smartphone addiction. Bivariate statistical analysis revealed factors significantly associated with high risk smartphone addiction, namely using smartphone for social media, using smartphone for entertainment, adolescent duration of screen time more than 2 hours daily during weekdays, adolescent duration of screen time more than 2 hours daily during weekends and adolescent duration of screen time more than 2 hours daily over a week. Following multiple logistic regression involving the aforementioned variables, using smartphone for social media (Adj. OR = 3.29, p = 0.025), using smartphone for entertainment (Adj. OR = 3.66, p = 0.046), adolescent duration of screen time more than 2 hours daily during weekdays (Adj. OR = 3.03, p = 0.042) , adolescent duration of screen time more than 2 hours daily during weekends (Adj. OR = 3.69, p = 0.031), and adolescent duration of screen time more than 2 hours daily over a week (Adj. OR = 6.17, p = 0.005) remained as independent predictive factors for high risk smartphone addiction among adolescent psychiatric patients.
Conclusion: In comparison to normal adolescent population, there was higher prevalent of high risk smartphone addiction among adolescent psychiatric patients. Sociodemographic factors of adolescents and parents as well as family characteristics factors did not predict smartphone addiction among the adolescent psychiatric patients, however, their smartphone usage status specifically, duration of screen time and type of usage (social media and entertainment) did. This entails for full awareness among parents, carers and healthcare professionals regarding this issue and for the development of programs to cater to this population in order to lessen the risk of smartphone addiction.