Relationship between the incidence of de Quervain's disease among teenagers and mobile gaming

Objective: To assess the relationship between the incidence of de Quervain's disease (DD) and mobile gaming.

Methods: We conducted an experimental cross-sectional study and surveyed specialized students with different majors from Xingtai Technician Institute. We applied the stratified clustered sampling method to recruit 500 students aged 16 to 20 years as survey respondents. We diagnosed DD by conducting Finkelstein's test. Chi-square test or Fisher's exact test was used to determine the correlation between different variables and Finkelstein's test results. SPSS 20 statistical software was used to perform all the statistical analyses.

Results: Among the five hundred students providing the valid data, there were 302 males and 198 females, with a male-to-female ratio of 3:2. Of them, 216, 159, 77, and 48 reported they played mobile games for < two, two to four, four to six, and > six hours per day, respectively. A total of 246 students (49%) had a positive result in Finkelstein's test. Three hundred and five (61.0%) students played mobile games with their wrist in dorsiflexion position, and among them, 192 had a positive result in Finkelstein's test. The statistical analyses showed that more frequent play, prolonged mobile gaming time per day, and changes in wrist position were significantly correlated with the positive rate of Finkelstein's test (p < 0.05).

Discussion: Our results show that the incidence of DD in students in the school was 49.0%. More frequent play, prolonged duration of mobile gaming, and change in wrist position were associated with higher risk of DD. We advocate the restricted time to less than 2.25 hours per day and the frequency in mobile gaming to prevent or reduce DD.