Screen use, health status, and self-perceived academic performance among Swedish dental and nursing students: an exploratory cross-sectional survey study.

Authors

Nikolaos Christidis, Moa Lärfars, Parul Khattar, Damyana Markus, Giancarlo De la Torre Canales, Maria Christidis

Published in

BMC medical education. Volume 26. Issue 1. Sep 21, 2026. Epub Sep 21, 2026.

Abstract

This study examined how screen use, physical and mental health, and 3-question temporomandibular disorders (3Q-TMD) screening status relate to self-perceived academic performance among Swedish undergraduate dental and nursing students.
Ninety-one first-semester dental and nursing students completed a survey comprising sociodemographic items, estimated daily screen use by purpose, and twelve self-report instruments. Self-perceived academic performance was measured with the Academic Performance Scale (APS) and analyzed as a continuous score. Bivariate group comparisons between lower and higher self-perceived academic performance used the Mann-Whitney U test or Welch's t-test with effect sizes, and the Holm-Bonferroni procedure to control the family-wise error rate within families of outcomes. The primary analysis was a hierarchical linear regression on the continuous APS score, entering demographics, then total screen time, then purpose-specific screen use, then a psychological symptom burden composite and 3Q-TMD screening status.
Total screen time was unrelated to academic performance in every analysis. Purpose-specific screen use added 19.0% of explained variance beyond total duration (F(3,81) = 6.78, p < 0.001), whereas total duration added 2.2% beyond purpose and was not significant (F(1,81) = 2.37, p = 0.127). In the full model (R2 = 0.341, adjusted R2 = 0.266), academic screen use was positively associated with performance (β = 0.426, p < 0.001), while work-related screen use (β = -0.299, p = 0.003) and psychological symptom burden (β = -0.361, p = 0.001) were negatively associated with performance. Students reporting lower performance also reported poorer health-related quality of life in five of eight RAND-36 domains and were more likely to have a positive 3Q-TMD screening result, although the latter association did not survive adjustment for oral parafunctional behavior.
Self-perceived academic performance was associated with the purpose of screen use and with psychological symptom burden, but not with total screen-time duration.

PMID:
42773432
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 23 Sep 2026.

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