Previously submitted to: Journal of Medical Internet Research (no longer under consideration since Oct 14, 2020)
Date Submitted: Oct 4, 2020
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Mobile Phone Craving And Problem Use In The Spanish Population: Analysis Of An Internet-Based Survey
ABSTRACT
Background:
Problem phone use is a growing concern in most societies, being associated to social and health problems in a similar way to other behavioral addictions. However, both, its prevalence and its nature as a behavioral disorder are not well described nor understood. More over it is not universally recognized yet as a clinical entity that deserves health-oriented interventions.
Objective:
In this study, both, an evaluation of cell phone craving and problematic cell phone use among the Spanish population was carried out. Our initial hypothesis is that both problematic cell phone use and cravings have increased in the last 5 years.
Methods:
Methods We used our adaptation of the original Mobile Phone Problematic Use Scale (MPPUS) as well as the Mobile Phone Addiction Craving Scale (MPACS) A total of 1,612 online interviews were conducted in 17 autonomous communities in the Spanish territory, with a global and specific analysis by gender, age, profession, education level and population center size.
Results:
The results indicate that the prevalence of problematic cell phone use in Spain is currently 4.8%, with 14.8% of users who abuse and are at risk of dependence and lack of control. In total, 19.6% of the population currently has mobile device use issues. These results do not differ significantly from those obtained in our previous investigation; in contrast, the level of craving increased significant. Both in the prevalence of problematic cell phone use and in craving, the highest incidence is observed for people between 16 and 35 years old, students, and users without education or basic education and in urban centers. There are no differences between genders.
Conclusions:
Therefore, the present study confirms that prevalence of problem phone use remained high in the Spanish Population, despite the rising concerns around its unhealthy consequences. In addition, we confirmed an increase in cell phone craving scores, indicating that technological dependence and need is increasing every day. Clinical Trial: The present study is not an intervention study so no Trial Registration was requested
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