(1062) Nomophobia: Phonelessness Phobia Among Anesthesiologist and Intensivist Professionals

Introduction: Like many healthcare providers, Critical Care providers require constant access to digital resources for their work. However, the increasing dependence on mobile phones has given rise to “Nomophobia”- the fear of being without one’s phone. Despite its potential impact, there is a lack of research on nomophobia among critical care professionals. We aimed to investigate the prevalence as well as the magnitude of this phobia among healthcare professionals in critical care settings.

Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among healthcare professionals from April-June 2023. The survey includes responses from Nurses, Residents, Fellows, Attending Physician, Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner, Respiratory Therapist, Emergency Medical Transport, and Physician Assistant working in the department of Emergency Medicine, Pulmonary critical, Anesthesia critical Care. We used a modified NMP-Q for the determination of Nomophobia. This study was IRB exempt.

Results: In 90 days, a total of 763 responses from 19 countries were collected. There were 56% female and 41% male responses (rest-non-binary). 30% of the respondents met the criteria for mild, 53% for moderate, and 16% for severe nomophobia. The top 5 countries were Mexico (132), the USA (116), Kenya (59), Croatia (56), and India (49). In critical care, we received the highest responses from attending physicians (N = 321). Out of these, a total of 33% met the criteria for mild, 51% moderate and 15% severe Nomophobia. Maximum responses according to age distribution (N = 289) were from ages 26 to 35, with 65 meeting criteria for mild, 181 for moderate, and 43 for severe Nomophobia.

Conclusions: In a global survey-based study where the majority of responses were from Mexico and the US, most participants responded to self-reported NMP-Q with moderate to severe nomophobia. This should encourage healthcare providers to remain mindful of their mobile phones at work and reinforce the need for patient-centric quality healthcare services.