Smartphone addiction and its association with hypertension and quality of sleep among medical students of Northern Border University, Arar, Saudi Arabia

Objectives: To observe the smartphone addiction's prevalence and its relation to hypertension and sleep quality.Methods: This study was carried out at the College of Medicine, Northern Border University, Arar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia from October 2022 to March 2023. A total of 200 medical students were selected using convenience sampling. Standard procedures were used to estimate the student's height, weight, body mass, and blood pressure. Smartphone addiction was assessed using the Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version and sleep quality was assessed using Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Relationships between smartphone addiction, sleep quality, hypertension, and obesity were estimated using multivariate logistic regression. A p<0.05 was viewed as statistically significant.Results: Prevalence rate of smartphone addiction was 36% (39.8% in men and 30.5% in women) and prevalence rate of hypertension was 35.5% (42.4% in men and 25.6% in women). Hypertension showed a significant positive relationship with smartphone addiction (odds ratio [OR]=2.12, 95% confidence interval [CI] =1.034-4.36), poor sleep quality (OR=3.54, 95% CI=1.73-7.22), and obesity (OR=3.03, 95% CI=1.09-8.42).Conclusion: Smartphone addiction has been demonstrated to have a high prevalence among medical undergraduates and has been associated significantly with elevated blood pressure.