Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Jun 19, 2023; 13(6): 361-375
Published online Jun 19, 2023. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v13.i6.361
Relationship between depression, smartphone addiction, and sleep among Chinese engineering students during the COVID-19 pandemic
Wen-Juan Gao, Yan Hu, Jun-Lin Ji, Xin-Qiao Liu
Wen-Juan Gao, Yan Hu, Jun-Lin Ji, Institute of Higher Education, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
Wen-Juan Gao, Yan Hu, Jun-Lin Ji, School of Public Administration, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
Wen-Juan Gao, Yan Hu, Jun-Lin Ji, Research Center for Beijing Higher Education Development, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China
Xin-Qiao Liu, School of Education, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300350, China
Author contributions: Gao WJ and Liu XQ designed the study; Gao WJ and Hu Y undertook the statistical analysis; Hu Y and Ji JL managed the literature searches and analyses; Gao WJ, Hu Y, Ji JL, and Liu XQ wrote the manuscript; and all authors contributed to and have approved the final manuscript.
Supported by the Strategic Research Project on the Cultivation Reform of Outstanding Engineers sponsored by Beihang University, No. 2022-0202-13.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of Tianjin University (approval date: 2022-12-01).
Informed consent statement: All participants provided informed written consent before entering the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: Data will be made available on reasonable request.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Xin-Qiao Liu, PhD, Associate Professor, School of Education, Tianjin University, No. 135 Yaguan Road, Jinnan District, Tianjin 300350, China. xinqiaoliu@pku.edu.cn
Received: February 27, 2023
Peer-review started: February 27, 2023
First decision: March 24, 2023
Revised: April 7, 2023
Accepted: April 24, 2023
Article in press: April 24, 2023
Published online: June 19, 2023
Processing time: 111 Days and 20.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: This study described the prevalence of depression and smartphone addiction among engineering students during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and analyzed the relationship between depression, smartphone addiction, and sleep. The results showed that there was an alarmingly high rate of smartphone addiction among engineering students, and they suffered from mild depression on average. Smartphone addiction and poor sleep were significant factors affecting depression, and sleep mediated the relationship between smartphone addiction and depression, including sleep latency, sleep disturbances, and daytime dysfunction.