Subjective Neurological Symptoms Among Mobile Phone Users

Background: A lot of investigations exist on the biological effects ofradiofrequency and microwave radiation; however only a few studies haveconsidered non-carcinogenic exposure to radiations specifically from mobilephones.Objectives: To introduce some subjective neurological symptoms in mobilephone users.Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional descriptive study conductedfrom March to August 2012; an eight-item questionnaire was administered toone thousand individuals. The questionnaire included the items concerningcurrent status of mobile phone use, the participants demographic andoccupational data and characteristics of their complaints. Data analysis wasdone using the Chi-square test and unpaired two-sided t-test in SPSS softwareversion 19.Results: A total of 731 participants with mean age of 36.52 ± 10.97 yearsaccepted to contribute in the study. The mean duration of mobile phone use was21.39 ± 16.87 months, and the mean daily duration of use was 42.18 ± 7.15minutes. Two hundreds and thirteen participants (29.4%) had some complaints.Headache (9.4%), fatigue (6.4%), and scalp warmness (5.3%) were the mostfrequent complaints. The symptoms were more frequent among men. Thenumber and percent of symptomatic patients increased with increasing dailyusing time, but not with change of overall duration of mobile usage.Conclusions: Headache, fatigue, and scalp warmness were reported as the mostfrequent complaints among mobile phone users. The prevalence of symptomswas related to daily using time, but not to overall duration of mobile usage.

Keywords:

Cell Phone , Neurological Manifestations