Epidemiological Behavior of Mobile Phone Dependence: A Criminological Perspective

Introduction: Prevalence of Mobile phone dependence (nomophobia) in increasing all over the world, but its prevalence and related factors in Latin America are unknown so far. Recently, the role of nomophobia in aggression, antisocial personality and emotional disturbances in adolescents has been recognized. Material and Methods: We included university students from Veracruz, Mexico. The Mobile Phone Problematic Use Scale (MPPUS) was applied: It is a Likert scale of 27 items. We used the 15th, 80th and 95th percentiles to establish four categories: occasional, habitual, at risk and problematic users. The values obtained were compared with several sociodemographic variables. Statistical analysis was made by means of the Mann-Whitney U-test and one-way ANOVA. Results: We included 541 students aged 18-25 years (median 20.5 years); the number of years using a mobile phone was greater than 5 in 73% (n = 395). The number of hours of use per day was at least 3 in 75.2% (n = 407). 16.5% can be considered as users at risk, and 4.1 % as problematic users. We found a statistically significant association between the MPPUS value and the number of hours of use per day, as well as the number of years using a mobile phone (p