TY - JOUR
T1 - The relationship between the nomophobic levels of higher education students in Ghana and academic achievement
AU - Essel, Harry Barton
AU - Vlachopoulos, Dimitrios
AU - Tachie-Menson, Akosua
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Essel et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2021/6/16
Y1 - 2021/6/16
N2 - There is an upsurge in the use of mobile phones among higher education students in Ghana, which may result in the nomophobia prevalence with the students. Therefore, the need to assess the influence of nomophobia within the student population in Ghana. This descriptive cross-sectional study investigated the prevalence of nomophobia and the sociodemographic variables, and the association with academic achievement of the understudied population. A self-reporting nomophobia questionnaire, composed of 20 dimensions, was answered by 670 university students to measure the nomophobia prevalence. Raw data were estimated using descriptive statistics, and one-way ANOVA and Independent T-test. While the findings showed diverse grades of nomophobia, statistical significance between academic achievement and the level of nomophobia was observed. This study concludes that there is a high nomophobia prevalence among university students in Ghana as the use of smartphones increases. However, follow-up studies should be conducted in Ghanaian universities to monitor nomophobia and its associates in order to reduce the adverse effects of habitual use of smartphones.
AB - There is an upsurge in the use of mobile phones among higher education students in Ghana, which may result in the nomophobia prevalence with the students. Therefore, the need to assess the influence of nomophobia within the student population in Ghana. This descriptive cross-sectional study investigated the prevalence of nomophobia and the sociodemographic variables, and the association with academic achievement of the understudied population. A self-reporting nomophobia questionnaire, composed of 20 dimensions, was answered by 670 university students to measure the nomophobia prevalence. Raw data were estimated using descriptive statistics, and one-way ANOVA and Independent T-test. While the findings showed diverse grades of nomophobia, statistical significance between academic achievement and the level of nomophobia was observed. This study concludes that there is a high nomophobia prevalence among university students in Ghana as the use of smartphones increases. However, follow-up studies should be conducted in Ghanaian universities to monitor nomophobia and its associates in order to reduce the adverse effects of habitual use of smartphones.
KW - Academic Success
KW - Adult
KW - Cross-Sectional Studies
KW - Educational Status
KW - Female
KW - Ghana/epidemiology
KW - Humans
KW - Male
KW - Phobic Disorders/epidemiology
KW - Prevalence
KW - Smartphone/statistics & numerical data
KW - Surveys and Questionnaires
KW - Universities/statistics & numerical data
KW - Young Adult
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85108268982&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0252880
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0252880
M3 - Article
C2 - 34133434
AN - SCOPUS:85108268982
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 16
JO - PLoS ONE
JF - PLoS ONE
IS - 6
M1 - e0252880
ER -