Correlation between smartphone addiction and loneliness among healthcare students.

Background and Aim: Smartphone has become a necessity for many individuals in the present world because they find smartphone is a suitable mode to stay connected with other people. A person is said to be dependent toward smartphone when he/she is completely with mobile phone for all works of his/her daily life and forgets about the people around them. Loneliness is a state in which a person feels complete social withdrawal or lonely. To overcome loneliness, the person will use his/her smartphone excessively for various reasons throughout the day and develops addiction to the same. This study aims at finding the level of smartphone addiction and severity of loneliness among the medical professionals. The aim of the study is to find the relationship between smartphone addiction and loneliness. Materials and Methods: A descriptive design was used for the present study. The sample consisting of 318 subjects were selected by convenient sampling. The tool used was baseline pro forma, Smartphone Addiction Scale (Short Version), and University of California Los Angeles Loneliness Scale (3^rd Version). Results: Majority of the participants belonged to the age group of 18–21 years, samples were selected equally from all the programs (Nursing, MBBS, and Allied Health Sciences), and majority of the participants were females and studying in II year. There was a weak positive correlation between smartphone addiction and loneliness, r = 0.269, P = 0.001, which was statistically significant. Conclusion: The study findings reveal that majority of the participants had moderate level of smartphone addiction and loneliness, and there was weak positive correlation exists between smartphone addiction and loneliness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]