A Study to Assess the Knowledge and Effect of Nomophobia Among Students of Selected Degree Colleges in Mysore

• Published in: Asian Journal of Nursing Education and Research Vol. 4; no. 4; p. 421
• Main Authors: Abraham, Nidhin, Mathias, Janet, Williams, Sheela
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Raipur A&V Publications 01.10.2014
• Subjects: Adolescents; Age; Cellular telephones; College students; Definitions; Family Income; Fear; Fear & phobias; Hypotheses; Knowledge Level; Networks; Rating Scales; Sampling; Studies; Trends
• ISSN: 2231-1149; 2349-2996

Nomophobia is a new term, defined as the fear of being out of mobile phone contact. People, especially teenagers get very anxious when they lose their mobile phone, run out of battery or credit or due to less network coverage. The ignorance of the disadvantage among adolescents has led to a long way of health hazards. So, it is best to sensitize and alert them regarding the ill effects of nomophobia, which prevents them from further risks. This study was aimed to assess the mobile phone dependence, knowledge, effect of nomophobia and to determine the relationship between knowledge and effect of nomophobia with their selected personal variables. An exploratory survey approach was used in this study. The sample consisted of 200 degree college students who were in the age group of 18 - 23 years were selected by Non probability purposive sampling technique. Tools consisted of Proforma for selected personal variables, self- administered structured knowledge questionnaire about nomophobia, rating scale to assess the effect of nomophobia. The majority (83%) of the sample were 18 - 20 years of age; 41.5% of them were interested in mobile/ computer games and chat and 59.5% of the sample were never heard the term nomophobia. Karl Pearson's coefficient was used to determine the correlation between knowledge and effect of nomophobia, where the obtained r(198) = 0.61 suggested that, inadequate knowledge will lead to increased effect of nomophobia. The Chi-square analysis revealed that knowledge about nomophobia among degree college students were found to be associated with variables viz. age, gender, monthly income, average duration of mobile phone use per day, reaction towards mobile phone damage, number of times one checks the mobile phone per day, awareness about the health hazards of mobile phone and those who carry mobile phone charger with them at 0.05 level of significance, hence, it was inferred that, these personal variables influence the knowledge of degree college students i.e. they had more knowledge about nomophobia. The results also revealed that, there was significant association between the effect of nomophobia and selected personal variables, wherein, it was evident that those who had a family income of less than Rs. 5000 per month, age at which first started to use their own mobile phone between 15 - 18 years and those who check their mobile phone more than 20 times a day had more effect of nomophobia. Thus, it was concluded that majority (89.5%) of the degree college students had poor knowledge and half (51%) of them had moderate effect of nomophobia. This emphasises the urgent need to sensitize and alert them regarding the ill effects of mobile phone use, which prevents them from further risks of nomophobia.