Prevalence of smartphone addiction and its related factors among pre-clinical students at IIUM Kuantan Campus 2016

Background. Smartphone addiction is a phenomenon whereby a person is unable to cut down the smartphone use and it triggers physiological stress because of overuse and leads to anxiety when their smartphones are not with them. Medical students are among the population developing smartphone addiction. The aim of this study is to determine the prevalence of smartphone addiction and its related factors among preclinical students at IIUM Kuantan Campus. Methods. A cross-sectional study using simple random sampling involving 200 medical students of IIUM Kuantan Campus Year 1 and Year 2 of both genders. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire through an online website which is a Google Form between 13 and 18 July 2016. Study tools used was Smartphone Addiction Scale: Short Version (SAS-SV), a validated structured questionnaire with Cronbach’s Alpha value of 0.966. Factors studied include gender, year of study, household income, time consumption, expenditure and purpose. Data were analyzed by using SPSS version 23.0. The percentage of each variable was calculated and the differences were tested using chi-square test. The p value was taken at p