Smartphone addiction, risk factors and its adverse effects in nursing students: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Smartphones are technological devices that have a great impact on people's daily lives changing their habits and behaviors. The utilities and capabilities of these devices are increasing and the foresight is that this tendency will grow in the next years. However, the problematic use of the smartphone has increased dangerously, interfering with the clinical practice of healthcare professionals. Objective To conduct a systematic review and a meta-analysis to estimate the prevalence of smartphone addiction, also known as nomophobia, in nursing students and to identify its related factors and its negative effects. Design Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. Data sources The literature search was done in CINAHL, Proquest, Pubmed, Scopus and Web of Science databases. Review methods The search equation was “(nomophobia OR smartphone) AND nurs* student*”. n = 16 articles were identified. Results The meta-analytic estimation of nomophobia or smartphone addiction was 22% (CI95% 18%–26%] in a sample of n = 2780 nursing students. Smartphone usability is very extended during the clinical practice by nursing students. They indicated using the device or watching other students distracted with their smartphone. Some variables related to excessive use in nursing students are lower sleep quality, lower self-esteem, higher social distress, lower perceived social support or lower communication skills between others. Conclusions The main use of the smartphone by nursing students is for communication with other people and some of them indicate that it can be a distraction.