Smartphone Usage and Sleep Disturbance and Their Link to Mental Health in College Students

Open Access
- Author:
- Feuer, Brady
- Area of Honors:
- Industrial Engineering
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Soundar Kumara, Thesis Supervisor
Andris Freivalds, Thesis Honors Advisor
Kristin Elizabeth King Sznajder, Thesis Supervisor - Keywords:
- Smartphone
Sleep
Mental Health
Depression
Anxiety - Abstract:
- The growing prevalence of mental health issues on college campuses is a rising issue. With depression and anxiety disorders running rampant, understanding the relationship between behaviors found amongst college students, such as increased smartphone usage and sleep disturbance, and mental health disorders may shed light on potential solutions and mitigation strategies. This study assessed depression via the Patient Health Questionnaire-8 (PHQ-8), anxiety via the General Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7), sleep disturbance using the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement System (PROMIS) Sleep Disturbance scale (short form), smartphone usage, and demographics in college students as a means to investigate the relationship between smartphone usage, sleep patterns, and mental health. The survey resulted in 285 valid responses, and through statistical and machine learning analysis it was found that depression was significantly and positively associated with anxiety, sleep disturbance, and perceived smartphone usage while anxiety was significantly and positively associated with depression, sleep disturbance, perceived smartphone usage, and actual smartphone usage time. Finally, it was found that the parameters discussed above could be used in a binary logistic regression model to predict the presence of depressive symptoms in new participants with 78.1% accuracy (sensitivity 0.638, specificity 0.861). With a specificity on par with other widely used and accepted depression evaluation scales, such as the PHQ-9, this model displays the potential value in assessing anxiety, sleep disturbance, and screen time when evaluating depression in college students.