Assessment of Knowledge on Ill Effects of Cellphones usage among Adolescents with a View to Develop Information Booklet:An urban Community Based Study

Introduction: Communication is essential in every area of life. Today, cell phone reception has improved greatly due to the use of satellites and wireless services. Although cell phones seems to be the ideal device for simplicity and connectedness, nothing is perfect. Adolescents are the age group those use cell phones most frequently for the various purposes such as to communication, text messaging, internet browsing, gaming and so on. They are the most risky group to get the ill effects of cell phones. So it is vital that adolescents should possess the knowledge on ill effects of cell phone to eliminate the dangers of excessive mobile phone use.

Method: This cross sectional descriptive survey was conducted to assess knowledge of adolescents residing at urban community area. Adolescents were selected through Non probability convenient sampling. The data was collected using a pretested structured questionnaire. The data was analysed using SPSS version 16 and the results were expressed as proportions.

Results: A total of 50 adolescents were included in the study. Analysis of the data revealed that 46% of adolescents had poor knowledge, 48% had average and 6% had good knowledge, none of the them possessed very good level of knowledge. With the level of knowledge of adolescents an information booklet was prepared and given to them. Association between demographic variables and the knowledge of adolescents was statistically tested by Chi square test and it was found that there is no significant association between knowledge of adolescents and the demographic variables.

Conclusion: A significant number of adolescents had poor knowledge on ill effects of cell phone usage. So researcher felt that various awareness programmes regarding ill effects of cell phone usage should be emphasized.