Prevalence and Factors Associated With Excessive Screen Time Among Young Children of 5 to 9 Years in Pokhara Metropolitan of Kaski District

Abstract

Background: Excessive screen time has been increasing among children and adolescents globally. The study aimed to find out the prevalence and associated factors of excessive screen time among young children. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted among children aged 5 to 9 years attending schools in Pokhara metropolitan. Face to face interview was conducted with one of the parents of 352 children. The study was carried out from March to October, 2020. Excessive screen time (ST) was defined as >2 hours screen viewing a day. Chi-square test and binary logistic regression were applied at 5% level of significance. Results: Of total, 47.4% of children had ST>2 hours a day. Among socio-demographic factors, being a boy (adjusted odds ratio (AOR), 1.65; 95% CI,1.05-2.57)), living in nuclear family (AOR, 0.62; 95% CI, 0.39-0.99) and age of the children (AOR, 1.28; 95% CI,1.03-1.58) were significantly associated with excessive ST. Having television at home, parental ST, offering screen devices to children had increased likelihood of reporting excessive ST. Odds of reporting of excessive ST was 8.97 times higher among those who had one television at home as compared to those who do not have. Excessive ST was more than three times among those children whose parents offered screen devices to make them eat as well as to have free time for the parents themselves. Conclusions: Few socio-demographic characteristics, parental ST and parental offering of screen devices were significantly associated with excessive ST. Interventions should target screen device accessibility and ST related behavior of parents.

Fruit and vegetable consumption among young school children in Pokhara, Kaski: A cross-sectional study

“…The information on socio-demographic characteristics of respondents, characteristics of children, and proportion of F&V consumptions (combined) have also been shared in our previously published article. 13 Fruit and vegetable consumption among children About 2.30% of children consumed neither fruits nor vegetables, while 13.07% did not consume fruits at all. Only 12(3.4%) of children had taken fruit at least two servings per day while 60(16.75%) consumed fruit once a day in the last week preceding the survey.…”

“…The more illustration of the study area, study population, study duration, and sampling techniques are available in our previous published article. 13 A structured questionnaire was prepared using questions used in other studies 14,15 Parent's information (age, sex, ethnicity, religion, education level, occupation, types of family, types of home, family monthly income), children's information (age, sex, grade, type of school), environmental factors (fruit and vegetable shop near home, fast food shop near home, taking a child for shopping, giving money to a child, snacks at home after school) were independent variables. F&V consumption (servings per day) was a dependent variable.…”

High Problematic Screen Exposure among Children Aged 2-5 Years Visiting the Department of Pediatrics of a Tertiary Care Centre

“…Similar studies on screen time in children done in Nepal showed a prevalence of 55.2% in children aged 3 to 10 years of age 9 and 47.4 % in 5-9 years old. 10 These studies focused on school-aged children while preschoolers were not the predominant study groups. A review article in India showed a prevalence of 59.5 % in children under 5 years of age.…”