Musculoskeletal Effects in Adult Consumers of Smartphones and Tablet Devices | Original Article

ABSTRACT:

The goal of the research was to study the prevalence of musculoskeletal symptoms among users of the adult smartphone or tablet (e.g. forms, locations and temporal distributions). The survey further examined the utilisation of equipment in terms of duration of use, postures taken during use, operating procedures and computer use for the purpose of explaining symptoms. In the intervening two weeks, participants from eastern Australian states recorded online use of devices and symptoms retrospectively. Data were analysed using a Chi-Square analysis [β2] to determine the relationships between categorical variables Mann-whitney U tests were carried out to compare two smartphone users versuses tablet users, for example, where the dependent variables are regular Spearman's correlation analysis was performed to evaluate the links between categorical variables. Of the 207 patients, 59.9 registered signs of musculoskeletal musculoskeletal before or after use, 64.5 of which were first observed within the first 30 minutes of use (mostly between 15 and 30 minutes). There were no statistically important variations in the proportion of symptoms recorded during mobile usage between smartphone-only users and tablet users (μ2 = .350, N = 207, p = .554). Rigidity is the most common sign. The symptoms in the neck were more common (18.1 percent in smartphone-only users and 19.3 percent in tablet device users). Tablet consumers aged from 18-24 and longer than 30 minutes using a tablet in each use session more frequently experienced symptoms (82.4 prevalence) than devices with 30 minutes or less (52.2) (μ2 = 4.723, N = 63, p = 0.030). These results indicate that consumer age, length, frequency, and types of system are significant considerations that should be considered to minimise the experience of muscular symptoms between the consumers of smartphones and tablets while developing evidence-based guidance. The bulk of consumers of smartphones and tablets would escape symptoms if use was limited to < 15 min.