Smartphone Addiction and Its Impact on Knowledge, Cognitive and Psychomotor Skills Among Dental Students in India: An Observational Study

Background: Addictive behavior toward the use of smartphones has turned out to be a commonly present phenomenon in this digital era. An individual's overindulgence in smartphone devices has turned into an obsessive and compulsive disorder. This addiction has been found to influence the physical, social, and psychological wellbeing of the studied population. This observational study aimed to assess smartphone addiction and its impact on knowledge, cognitive, and psychomotor skills in students pursuing dentistry in India.

Materials And Methods: This prospective and cross-sectional survey-based study comprised 100 dental undergraduate students who were selected by a random sampling technique. The age range of subjects ranged between 18 and 22 years with equal gender distribution (50 each male and female). A prevalidated questionnaire containing 30 items encompassing five variables, that is, applications related to healthcare, entertainment, shopping, communication, and education were used to assess the response. Based on scores, patients were categorized as addicted or with no addiction. For evaluating the knowledge, cognitive, and psychomotor skills of students, theory-based examinations were held in different subjects as per the semester year of selected students while psychomotor skills were assessed by conducting clinical or preclinical examinations conducted by two separate examiners who following mutual agreement were assigned appropriate scores. All scores were categorized into four grades, that is, from grades I to VI.

Results: Students with smartphone addiction exhibited lower performance in both theory-based and clinical/preclinical assessment examinations with a majority of them scoring grade III or IV.

Conclusion: Smartphone addiction reduces the academic knowledge, cognitive, and psychomotor skills of dental students.