Background: Text neck syndrome, known as repetitive stress pain, is an injury that results from extreme watching or texting on handheld devices for an extended period of time. The use of mobile phones is increasing rapidly, and people spend long hours on them that also leads to other musculoskeletal problems. This study aimed to identify the prevalence and knowledge of residents toward Text neck syndrome in Jazan, Saudi Arabia.
Methods: This is a cross-sectional online survey among the Saudi population in Jazan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The questionnaire contained socio-demographic information and questions to assess the awareness and prevalence of Text neck syndrome.
Results: A total of 385 Jazan residents responded to this questionnaire. Among them, 50.1% were in the age group between 21 and 30 years, 61% used smartphones for more than 5 hours per day, 90.1% were aware of the harms of using smartphones, while only 14.8% had previously heard about Text neck syndrome. Among the participants, 47.2% agreed that it was multi-factorial. Although 1.6% of the participants were diagnosed with this syndrome, 80.5% of the responders had more than one symptom using smartphones. About 93% of the responders believed that they should reduce using smartphones because of their symptoms. The average knowledge score was 6.4 ± 3.2, out of 15 points. Factors significantly correlated to high knowledge levels included age between 31 and 40 years (p-value = 0.023), higher educational level (p-value < 0.001), living in cities (p-value = 0.043), hearing previously about Text neck syndromes (p-value = 0.002), and being diagnosed with this syndrome (p-value = 0.013).
Conclusion: Text neck syndrome is underdiagnosed in Jazan, Saudi Arabia. This can be due to the inadequate level of knowledge of the public about this syndrome.
Key words: Text neck syndrome, smartphones, neck pain, harms.
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