Text neck syndrome, an emerging public health threat during Covid-19 situation

ABSTRACT

Objective: To find the association between smartphone usage and text neck syndrome and to assess the frequency of text neck syndrome among young adults during quarantine period of covid-19 pandemic. Methodology: This cross sectional study was conducted on 184 young adults using non-probability convenient sampling technique. The data were collected from different institutes of Lahore. We used Neck disability Index and Nomophobia questionnaire. Results: Out of 184 participants, 64.7% were female and 35.3% were male. Mean age was 21.8478 ± 2 years. 76.6% of the participants had text neck syndrome in the study. There was no disability (0 – 4 scores) in 26.6% young adults, mild disability (5 – 14 score) in 30.4% young adults and moderate disability (15 – 24 scores) in 28.8% young adults with p < 0.001. Conclusion: There was significant positive association between smartphone usage and text neck syndrome. The excessive and prolonged use of smartphones is directly associated with higher neck disability scores. The frequency of text neck syndrome during covid-19 has significantly increased.