Occurrence of Neck Pain Among Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Students: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of Prevalence and Its Association with Smartphone Use

Abstract

Neck pain linked to prolonged smartphone use has become a widely reported musculoskeletal complaint among university students. This paper isolates and reports on the first research hypothesis of a larger cross-sectional study, which asked whether neck pain is prevalent among undergraduate Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation students. Data were drawn from a structured, self-administered survey of 200 undergraduate students at the Department of Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation, European University of Lefke. Neck-related symptoms were captured using the Neck Disability Index (NDI) and the Numeric Pain Rating Scale (NPRS), and the association between smartphone usage and neck disability was tested with a chi-square test of independence. Descriptive results showed that 45.3% of students reported neck pain overall, that 48.5% of the sample showed some level of neck disability on the NDI (mild, moderate, or severe), and that 57.5% reported some level of pain on the NPRS. The chi-square test confirmed a statistically significant association between smartphone usage duration and neck disability, χ²(2, N = 200) = 15.08, p < .001, Cramer’s V = 0.275. These findings lead to rejection of the null hypothesis and acceptance of the alternative hypothesis: neck pain is prevalent among Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation students. The result is consistent with international literature reporting neck pain prevalence of roughly 30–78% among young adults and university populations.