Survey: Virtually all healthcare providers meet criteria for nomophobia

NEW YORK CITY — More than 99% of global health care providers (HCPs) meet some level of criteria for nomophobia, also known as “no cell phone phobia” or the fear of not having your phone.

According to the Nomophobia questionnaire, 64.2% met the criteria for moderate nomophobia, 19.8% for severe and 15.6% for mild, reported the American Psychiatric Aakanksha Singh, MBBS, of the Global Remote Program Research Scholars of St. Paul, Minnesota. Annual meeting of the Association.

“[These findings] they indicate that everyone had some kind of nomophobia,” Singh said MedPage todayadding that he was “absolutely blown away” by the responses.

The hallmark of nomophobia is the restlessness, worry or anxiety you feel without your screen, be it mobile or computer. The consequences of nomophobia can manifest in a decrease in attention to work, stress and insomnia. “It’s definitely different from an addiction,” he said.

Some behaviors are linked to nomophobia, such as waking up in the middle of the night and checking the phone, waking up and immediately checking the phone, using screen time as a substitute for physical or recreational activity, or using the phone in place to spend time with family. Singh pointed out.

Some of these daily habits improve nomophobia, he added. While this is not a particularly dangerous phenomenon, Singh highlighted the burden on HCPs because they need to stay digitally connected.

“As healthcare workers, we use a lot of screens for medical records, to communicate diagnoses or to share our diagnosis with another doctor,” he said. “The whole electronic medical system is based on screens.”

That’s why he recommended that healthcare professionals try to do a “digital detox” on their days off. “Maybe try to go a whole day without phones,” he said. “[Put] limits on the use of social networks. When you’re sitting at the dining room table, don’t use your phone. Family time, don’t use your phone. Small interventions like this could probably limit our time … and reduce our dependence on ourselves like our dependence on our smartphones.”

The study included 12,253 HCP survey respondents from 105 countries. The majority were in the 26-35 age group (38%), followed by 18-25 (30.6%) and 36-45 (17.5%). The majority of HCPs were South Asian (36%), while 14% were Latino, 13.2% were black, and 11% were white.

The majority of respondents were internists (1,879), followed by surgeons (833), nurses (549), dentists (445), radiologists (355), or psychiatrists/psychologists (226). The majority of HCPs had 2–5 years of clinical experience (26.8%), 18.9% had 6–10 years, and 16.2% had 11–20 years of experience.

Around 60% were women and 40% men. Female HCPs did not have significantly higher odds of moderate-severe nomophobia compared to males (OR 1.05, 95% CI 0.95–1.16).

Compared to healthcare professionals who used their phones for less than 3 hours per day for personal or work-related use, those who used their phones for 3-6 hours per day had significantly higher odds of moderate nomophobia -severe:

• 3 to 6 hours of personal use: OR 3.40 (95% CI 2.98-3.80)
• 3 to 6 hours for work use: OR 1.50 (95% CI 1.30-1.70)

The odds of nomophobia were highest for those who used their phones more than 6 hours a day.

In a subanalysis, Singh’s group analyzed 2,540 responses from medical students and found that 12.6%, 67.6%, and 19.6% met criteria for mild, moderate, and severe nomophobia, respectively , percentages that were generally in line with the larger HCP community. .

A total of 53.3% of medical students said they used their phone for work more than 2 hours a day. Almost a third said they also used their phone for personal use for 4 hours each day.