A CROSS SECTIONAL DESCRIPTIVE STUDY ON THE EFFECT OF SCREEN TIME ON NEURODEVELOPMENT, SLEEP, BEHAVIOR AND HEALTH OF CHILDREN AGED 1-5 YEARS.

Background: Screen-time is the amount of time a person spends in front of an electronic/digital device such as television, a smartphone, a tablet or a computer. Objective: To study the impact of screen timeon children’s mental and physical health. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was carried out in the Pediatric Outpatient Department to examine screen habits in 280 children between the ages of 1 and 5 years. Results: The study population had a mean age of 40.9 months, with females making up 63.57% of the participants and males accounting for 36.4%. A majority of the study participants belonged to the lower middle-class category, comprising 44.6% of the sample. Older children (48 - 60 months) exhibited higher levels of electronic media exposure compared to younger age groups (12-24 months) (p< 0.001). Minimal high media exposure time was observed in males compared to females (p=0.048). Conclusion: The most commonly used electronic media devices in the population were smartphones (95.7%) and televisions (98.5%). On average, families had 3.37 ± 0.79 electronic media devices. Higher electronic media exposure was noted in the upper and upper-middle socioeconomic groups compared to other socioeconomic categories (p<0.001). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]