ArticleWorld journal of psychiatry2023
Relationship between depression, smartphone addiction, and sleep among Chinese engineering students during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Article in World journal of psychiatry, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Prevalence of depression or depressive symptoms among engineering students: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMJ open · 2025Pooled it
- Association Between Smartphone Addiction and Academic Performance Among Rural School Students of Telangana.Cureus · 2026Article
- Mobile Phone Addiction and Sleep Quality Among Children and Adolescents: Unraveling the Health Consequences.Cureus · 2026Review
- Competitive Attitudes and Depression Among Chinese College Students: Mediating Roles of Sleep Quality and Peer Relationships.Psychology research and behavior management · 2026Article
- Acceptance and Use of Technology on Digital Learning Resource Utilization and Digital Literacy Among Chinese Engineering Students: A Longitudinal Study Based on the UTAUT2 Model.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- The relationship between social support and smartphone addiction among Chinese college students: the mediating role of loneliness and the moderating role of meaning in life.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Do regular exercise, gender, and age influence smartphone addiction? Analyzing screen time and smartphone deprivation symptoms.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Research fronts and researchers ofWorld journal of psychiatry · 2024Article
- Potential use of large language models for mitigating students' problematic social media use: ChatGPT as an example.World journal of psychiatry · 2024Article
- Review
- Family socioeconomic status and young children digital addiction: a moderated mediation model.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- The relationship between mobile phone dependence and academic burnout in Chinese college students: a moderated mediator model.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- The impact of smartphone dependence on college students' sleep quality: the chain-mediated role of negative emotions and health-promoting behaviors.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- The relationship of smartphone addiction with depression, anxiety, and stress among medical students.SAGE open medicine · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundExisting research has demonstrated that depression is positively related to smartphone addiction, but the role of sleep has not been discussed thoroughly, especially among engineering undergraduates affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.
aimTo evaluate sleep as a mediator of the association between smartphone addiction and depression among engineering undergraduates.
methodsUsing a multistage stratified random sampling method, a cross-sectional survey was conducted among 692 engineering undergraduates from a top engineering university in China, and data were collected by self-reported electronic questionnaires. The data included demographic characteristics, such as age, gender, the Smartphone Addiction Scale-Short Version (SAS-SV), the 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire, and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index. Pearson correlation and multiple linear regression analyses were used to examine the association between smartphone addiction and depression, while structural equation models were established to evaluate the possible mediating role of sleep.
resultsBased on the cutoffs of the SAS-SV, the rate of smartphone addiction was 63.58 percent, with 56.21 percent for women and 65.68 percent for men, among 692 engineering students. The prevalence of depression among students was 14.16 percent, with 17.65 percent for women, and 13.18 percent for men. Smartphone addiction was positively correlated with depression, and sleep played a significant mediating effect between the two, accounting for 42.22 percent of the total effect. In addition, sleep latency, sleep disturbances, and daytime dysfunction significantly mediated the relationship between depression and smartphone addiction. The mediating effect of sleep latency was 0.014 [
conclusionThe results of the study suggest that reducing excessive smartphone use and improving sleep quality can help alleviate depression.
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