The severity of mobile phone addiction and its relationship with quality of life in Chinese university students

Lu Li; Grace K I Lok; Song Li Mei; Xi Ling Cui; Lin Li; Chee H Ng; Gabor S Ungvari; Juan Zhang; Feng Rong An; Yu Tao Xiang

doi:10.7717/peerj.8859

The severity of mobile phone addiction and its relationship with quality of life in Chinese university students

PeerJ. 2020 Jun 1:8:e8859. doi: 10.7717/peerj.8859. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Lu Li^#^{1

2}, Grace K I Lok^{2

3}, Song Li Mei^#⁴, Xi Ling Cui⁵, Lin Li⁶, Chee H Ng⁷, Gabor S Ungvari^{8

9}, Juan Zhang¹⁰, Feng Rong An^{11

12}, Yu Tao Xiang²

Affiliations

¹ The Affiliated Brain Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (Guangzhou Huiai Hospital), Guangzhou, China.
² Center for Cognition and Brain Sciences, University of Macau, Macao SAR, China.
³ Kiang Wu Nursing College of Macau, Macao SAR, China.
⁴ School of Public Health, Jilin University, Changchun, China.
⁵ Department of Business Administration, Hong Kong Shue Yan University, Hong Kong SAR, China.
⁶ Department of Pharmacy, The First Affiliated Hospital, College of Medicine, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
⁷ Department of Psychiatry, The Melbourne Clinic and St Vincent's Hospital, University of Melbourne, Richmond, Victoria, Australia.
⁸ University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, WA, Australia.
⁹ Division of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia.
¹⁰ Faculty of Education, University of Macau, Macao SAR, China.
¹¹ The National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders & Beijing Key Laboratory of Mental Disorders, Beijing, China.
¹² Beijing Anding Hospital & The Advanced Innovation Center for Human Brain Protection, Beijing, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Objective: This study examined the severity of mobile phone addiction and its relationship with quality of life (QOL) in Chinese university students.

Methods: A total of 2,312 university students from Macao, Hong Kong and mainland China participated in this cross-sectional study. The Mobile Phone Addiction Scale (MPAS), and the World Health Organization Quality of Life-Brief version (WHOQOL-BREF) rating instruments were used to assess the severity of mobile phone addiction and QOL, respectively.

Results: Compared to students in mainland China, those in Macao and Hong Kong were more likely to have excessive mobile phone use. Multiple linear regression revealed that high academic pressure and poor academic performance were positively associated, while male gender, greater interest in academic major and long sleep duration were negatively associated with the severity of mobile phone addiction. Students addicted to mobile phone use had significantly lower scores across all QOL domains.

Conclusion: Due to the adverse impact of excessive mobile phone use on QOL, public education and effective preventive measures should be developed for Chinese university students.

Keywords: China; Mobile phone use; Quality of life; University students.

Grants and funding

The study was supported by the National Science and Technology Major Project for Investigational New Drug (IND: 2018ZX09201-014), and the University of Macau (MYRG2019-00066-FHS). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.