Prevalence and determinants of no mobile phone phobia among university students: an Italian multicenter study

Objective As the Internet has undergone a significant increase, the smartphone has become the primary electronic device used for accessing it. However, several adverse effects on health and also psychological disorders, such as the fear of not being able to use a mobile phone and/or its services, called nomophobia, may be related to their use. This multicenter study was aimed at evaluating the prevalence, the correlates and the predictors of nomophobia in a large sample of university students recruited throughout the Italian territory. Methods Students attending 12 Italian universities were asked to complete a web-based questionnaire investigating their sociodemographic and behavioral characteristics and including the Nomophobia-Questionnaire, items from the Generalized Anxiety Disorder and the Patient Health Questionnaire. Results out of 1303 respondents (mean age 24.1 +/- 4.4, 69.5% females), 454 (34.8%) showed a medium/severe profile of nomophobia which seems to be related with attention to diet (PR 0.831, 95%CI 0.715-0.966, p = 0.016), physical activity levels (PR 0.799, 95%CI 0.682-0.934, p = 0.005), and alcohol consumption (PR 1.290, 95%CI 1.010-1.647, p = 0.042). Furthermore, nomophobia was slightly related with a predisposition to anxiety (rho = 0.2312, p < 0.001) and depression (rho = 0.0699, p = 0.0116). Conclusions The results indicated that in the sample examined nomophobia profile is associated with unhealthy behaviors, and then this finding suggested that awareness and control of health risks related to the use of mobile phones should be increased in the population examined.