P140 A study of sleep quality, smartphone use and chronic neck pain among male and female university students

PURPOSE: Intensive smartphone use may contribute to chronic neck and shoulder pain and sleep disturbance. This study aimed to examine the relationship of sleep quality with daytime smartphone use and self-reported neck-shoulder symptoms among university students in Hong Kong. METHODS: Nineteen university students participated (11 males, 9 females, mean age=21.7±3.9). The actigraphy device Actiwatch 2 (Philips Ltd) was used to record 7 nights of sleep data. Daytime smartphone use and neck and shoulder pain scores (on a Pain scale 0–10) were recorded. RESULTS: Total sleep time (TST) was significantly longer in females (410.2min) than males (359.6min) (p=0.012), as was the sleep efficiency (females: 87.8%, males: 79.8%, p=0.003). Their sleep onset latency was similar at around 18min. The mean weekly Screen time and pre-bed Screen time were 430.1min and 37.9min for females, and 427.2min and 26.7min for males respectively. All the participants reported mild neck-shoulder symptoms (mean pain scores=0.9±1.8 for neck, 1.5±2.4 for shoulder). Pearson correlation showed no statistically significant association between sleep parameters, neck/shoulder pain score, screen time during day, and pre-bed screen time. CONCLUSION: The present results showed that university students in Hong Kong were sleep deprived with on average, ~6h of sleep per night and spending ~30min each night on screen devices. Female students slept ½h more than male students. Given the low pain scores and small sample size, no significant relationship was found with musculoskeletal symptoms and smartphone use. Future study should recruit those with more severe symptoms and increase the sample size.