Analysis of Smartphone Addiction With Anxiety in School-Aged Children

Abstract

Introduction: Increasing smartphone overuse among children is an addictive behavior that not only creates physical difficulties, but also affects their mental health in ways such as mood changes, withdrawal, emotional discomfort, fear and worry regarding certain social situation. The study aimed at determining the analysis correlation between smartphone addiction with anxiety in Pawyatan Daha elementary school, Kediri, East Java. Methods: This study use a cross-sectional design. The sampling method was simple random sampling and 154 students from Pawyatan Daha elementary school, Kediri, East Java comprised the sample. Data collection was carried out in November to December 2022. In this study, the independent variable was smartphone addiction as measured by the smartphone addiction risk children questionnaire (SARCQ), and the dependent variable was anxiety as measured by the revised child anxiety and depression scale (RCADS). Data analysis was using the spearman rho test with α=0.05. Result: The study showed the majority 77.3% of respondents are addicted smartphone in the high category, anxiety majority 52.6% of respondents are general anxiety disorders category and statistical test result show a significant correlation with a p-value of 0.001 (p<0.005) and r = 0.330. Conclusions: Smartphone addiction has a correlation with anxiety in school-aged children, parents must supervise their children's smartphone use in order to help them develop character and avoid addicted behavior and nurse can act as counselors by providing regular counseling service visits to elementary school to reduce smartphone addiction.