Investigating the Problematic Use of Cell-Phone in the Relationship by Feelings of Loneliness and Alexithymia with the Mediating Role of Distress Tolerance among Medical Science Students

Introduction: In recent years, the cell-phone use greatly increased throughout the World. In between worrying about the psychological effects of this phenomenon is on the rise. The Present research was aimed to investigate the problematic use of cell-phone in the relationship by feeling of loneliness and alexithymia with the mediating role of distress tolerance among medical science students.Methods: In this cross sectional study employed a correlational method based on causal models. The statistical population of the research included all medical science students of Ahvaz Jondishapur university. The statistical sample included ۲۷۷ subjects selected by available method. In this research, questionnaires of cell-phone over-use scale (COS), UCLA loneliness scale (ULS), Toronto alexithymia scale (TAS) and distress tolerance scale (DTS) were used. The research data was analyzed using SPSS and AMOS software and with the help of structural equation modeling method.Results: The results showed the direct effect of the variable of alexithymia (۰.۲۳۱), feeling of loneliness (-۰.۳۷۲), and distress tolerance (-۰.۲۰۴) were significant on problematic use of cell-phone (p<۰.۰۱). Also, the indirect effect of the distress tolerance variable on problematic use of cell-phone through the role of alexithymia and feeling of loneliness were significant (p<۰.۰۱).Conclusions: Based on the findings of the research, it can be concluded that a better clinical understanding of alexithymia, feeling of loneliness and distress tolerance in the pathology of problematic use of cell-phone is a key element in the evaluation and clinical work with medical science students.

Keywords:

Problematic use of cell-phone , Distress tolerance , Feeling of loneliness , alexithymia , Medical science students