Musculoskeletal pain symptoms in users performing smartphone texting: A preliminary study on institute environment

Abstract

Nowadays, smartphones have become an integral part of our lives as the advancement of technologies leads the world to use such devices as a mode of communication. Everyone relies on their smartphones for our daily activities, irrespective of adopted painful postures leading to musculoskeletal pain symptoms. The present study investigates the possible factors associated with musculoskeletal pain among institute students performing smartphone texting in various postural conditions. A cross-sectional study was conducted on Indian Institute students (N = 447; female = 194; male = 253) using a self-administered online questionnaire to gather a self-report measure of musculoskeletal pain. Various postures adopted while freely performing smartphone texting were considered in four institute environment conditions: sitting on a chair, sitting on a staircase, standing and walking. Multi nominal regression analysis was used to identify the occurrence of musculoskeletal pain with associated factors. Significant associations found included musculoskeletal pain in the neck (odds ratio 2.16, 95% confidence interval 0.86–3.47), and the shoulder (2.11, 0.67–5.93) for the time spent on smartphone texting of 6–9 h on a typical day. The pain in the neck (2.06, 0.49–3.17) and the back (2.11, 0.65–4.38) was also statistically significant for the users' texting condition while sitting on a staircase. It was observed that students mostly acquire excessive flexed neck-trunk posture during smartphone texting, causing pain symptoms and is mostly of major concern to heavy users.