Prevalence of Wrist Pain, Disability, and Association with Smartphone Addiction Among Undergraduate Physical Therapy Students of Hayatabad Peshawar; An Analytical Cross-Sectional Study

Background: In the modern world, smartphones have become an integral part of our daily life routine due to their extensive application in communication, entertainment, work, and study. However, excessive and prolonged use of smartphones has been linked to developing smartphone addiction, which in turn is a causative factor for many musculoskeletal problems, including wrist and hand pain as well as disabilities. Objective: To determine the prevalence of wrist pain, disability, and association with smartphone addiction among undergraduate physical therapy students of Hayatabad Peshawar. Methodology: A cross-sectional survey was conducted on 300 undergraduate physical therapy students of Hayatabad, Peshawar, using a convenience sampling technique. The nordic wrist pain scale, patient-rated wrist evaluation scale (PRWE), and smartphone addiction scale short version (SAS-SV) were used to determine the prevalence of wrist pain, its severity, and smartphone addiction level, respectively. Individuals with a history of wrist joint fracture or trauma, recent analgesic use, neurological, metabolic, and systemic diseases were excluded. The Shapiro-Wilk test was applied to assess the normality of the data for the continuous variable, which showed that our data was normally distributed (p>0.05). A chi-square test was performed to examine its association with wrist pain and disability. Results: Out of 300 students, 168(56%) showed a high level of smartphone addiction, whereas 132(44%) showed a low level of smartphone addiction. The prevalence of wrist pain was found to be 162(54%) out of 300; the majority of the participants fell into the mild category of wrist pain and disability. A significant association was found between smartphone addiction and wrist pain, disability (p=0.00). Wrist Pain and Duration of mobile phone usage were statistically significant (p=0.00), 55.7% of the participants used their mobile phones more than five hours a day. Conclusion: There was a high prevalence of smartphone addiction among students, which was associated with increased prevalence of wrist pain. The duration of smartphone usage was also significantly associated with wrist pain and disability.