Assessment of Smartphone Addiction in Indian Adolescents: A Mixed Method Study by Systematic-review and Meta-analysis Approach

There is a considerable debate on addiction and abuse to Smartphone among adolescents and its consequent impact on their health; not only in a global context, but also specifically in the Indian population; considering that Smartphone's, globally occupy more than 50% of mobile phones market and more precise quantification of the associated problems is important to facilitate understanding in this field. As per PRISMA (2009) guidelines, extensive search of various studies in any form from a global scale to the more narrow Indian context using two key search words: “Smartphone's addiction” and “Indian adolescents” was done using websites of EMBASE, MEDLINE, PubMed, Global Health, Psyc-INFO, Biomed-Central, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, world library - World-Cat, Indian libraries such as National Medical Library of India from 1 January, 1995 to March 31, 2014 first for systematic-review. Finally, meta-analysis on only Indian studies was done using Med-Calc online software capable of doing meta-analysis of proportions. A total of 45 articles were considered in systematic-review from whole world; later on 6 studies out of these 45 related to Smartphone's addiction in India were extracted to perform meta-analysis, in which total 1304 participants (range: 165-335) were enrolled. The smartphone addiction magnitude in India ranged from 39% to 44% as per fixed effects calculated (P < 0.0001). Smartphone addiction among Indian teens can not only damage interpersonal skills, but also it can lead to significant negative health risks and harmful psychological effects on Indian adolescents.