Smartphone Addiction as a Predictor of Poor Sleep Quality Among Secondary School Students: A School-Based...

Sleep quality is essential for adolescent health, development, and academic functioning. Increasing smartphone use has raised concerns regarding its potential impact on sleep, particularly among adolescents in understudied populations such as Upper Egypt.

To examine the association between smartphone addiction severity and multidimensional sleep quality among secondary school students in Upper Egypt.

A descriptive correlational cross-sectional study.

The study was conducted in four governmental secondary schools in Minia District, Minia. A multistage stratified random sample of 400 students was recruited from the first, second, and third academic grades, with two classes randomly selected from each grade level.

Data were collected using a structured self-administered questionnaire, the Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version (SAS-SV), and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). The SAS-SV demonstrated good internal consistency (α = 0.89), and the PSQI demonstrated acceptable reliability (α = 0.87) in the present sample.

Moderate smartphone addiction was reported by 50% of students, while 65% experienced poor sleep quality. Smartphone addiction was positively correlated with poorer sleep quality (r = 0.52, 95% CI: 0.45--0.58, p < 0.001), indicating a large effect size. Hierarchical regression analysis demonstrated that smartphone addiction substantially improved the prediction model, increasing explained variance in sleep quality from 12% to 33% (ΔR² = 0.21, p < 0.001). Binary logistic regression confirmed that students with high smartphone addiction had more than five-fold increased odds of poor sleep quality (AOR = 5.34, 95% CI: 2.81--10.14, p < 0.001) after adjustment for age, gender, residence, and birth order.

Smartphone addiction was highly prevalent and significantly associated with poor sleep quality among secondary school students in Upper Egypt. Given the cross-sectional design, causal inference cannot be established; however, the findings highlight the importance of integrating smartphone addiction screening and sleep health promotion into school nursing practice to support early identification and intervention for at-risk adolescents.