The Relationship Between Parental Smartphone Addiction and Child Problematic Media Use: Mediating Roles of...

To study how parental psychological distress and parent-child conflict (PCC) mediate the relationships between smartphone dependence in caregivers and their children's problematic usage of media and to validate the Child-Parent Relationship Scale-Short Form (CPRS-SF) in Arabic, a valuable tool that assesses intrafamilial connections.

This cross-sectional study enrolled 892 parents with kids aged between 6 and 10 years of age. The confirmatory factor analysis tested the two-factor structure of the CPRS-SF scale, and the mediation analyses explored the link between parental smartphone addiction (PSA) and child media use.

The Arabic version of the CPRS-SF showed strong reliability for both the Conflict (α = 0.88) and Closeness (α = 0.91) subscales. PSA was directly and positively associated with child problematic media use and indirectly via two mediators: higher psychological distress in parents and greater PCC and their children. However, anxiety and closeness between parents and children were not significant mediators.

Our findings indicate that children's media habits are associated with parental psychological well-being and the quality of parent-child relationships. These results highlight the importance of considering family emotional and relational contexts when addressing child problematic media use and suggest that awareness of parental distress, PCC, and problematic smartphone use may be relevant for clinicians and educators working with families.