Association Between Problematic Mobile Phone Usage And Alexithymia Among High Vocational College Students

Objective Based on the description of epidemic characteristics of PMPU among higher vocational college students, we analyze the association between PMPU and alexithymia in order to provide evidence for the intervention of PMPU.Methods Three colleges’ students were recruited by convenient cluster sampling from Anhui Province as our research object. We developed the "investigation of adolescent health behavior questionnaire" as the main tools in this field survey. To evaluate the PMPU and alexithymia among students, we use the use the SQAPMPU and Toronto Alexithymia Scale(TAS-20) questionnaire. The database was inputted by Epi Info 3.03 d. The data were analyzed by SPSS10.0 package. Statistical method included Pearson Chi-square, F test, 95%CI computation and multivariate Logistic regression.Results The prevalence of moderate and high dependence of PMPU was 49.3% and 26.4%. In the aspect of high dependence of PMPU, the girl was 26.9% higher than that of boy 25.1% with statistical significance(P<0.001). There was significant difference in different university type, grade, gender, Self assessment body, Self assessment of the economic situation of the family, relation with parents, parental control and expectation, degree of strict with himself, self-reported grades and self-reported burdens(P<0.05 or 0.001). The scores of TAS was 53.81±8.71, F1 was 18.26±5.12, F2 was 13.78±5.12, F3 was 21.77±3.13. There were significant differences on scores of TAS and factor scores in gender, age, personality, one child or not, relationship with parents,, self-reported grades and self-reported learning burdens. The TAS scores and factor scores of alexithymia in high degree dependence group of PMPU were higher than that of low and moderate group(P<0.001). A positive correlation existed between the PMPU and alexithymia on total score and factor score; The result of the model of multivariate Logistic regression reveal that the group of no alexithymia had the lower risk than that of alexithymia after control the gender, age and other variables(OR=0.49, CI=0.35~0.70); OR=0.18, CI=0.13~0.25).Conclusion The PMPU is more common among higher vocational college students. There was a positive correlation between with PMPU and alexithymia. The alexithymia students relied on more risk of PMPU, so they were the key population for the intervention of PMPU.