Prevalence of Nomophobia and Addiction to Smartphone among University Students in Tunisia Running Title: Prevalence of Nomophobia among University Students

Abstract

Users of technology have to increase the time spent on their phone to feel satisfied, and express incessant and compulsive monitoring habits. For this reason, smartphones were designed as potentially addictive. This was a quantitative cross-sectional study describing the prevalence of nomophobia among students in University of Sfax in Tunisia. The predominant age range was 18-20 years with a predominance of the female gender (60%). According to the nomophobia questionnaire (NMP_Q), (99.6%) of the students were nomophobic. This result was reinforced by the Smartphone addiction scale (SAS_SV) which revealed that (97.4%) among them have an addiction on their smartphones. Our results provide a solid basis for developing recommendations for awareness about this topic. Deducing the prevalence of nomophobia especially among young people is a social emergency given its bio-psychosocial impact.