Investigating the Relationship Between Dietary Antioxidant Index With Anthropometric Indices, Clinical Symptoms, Inflammatory Markers, Sleep Quality and Quality of Life in Patients With Rheumatoid Art

With the rapid proliferation of mobile technology, mobile phones have become deeply embedded in students’ daily communication, information seeking, learning, and entertainment. However, maladaptive overuse of these devices has become a growing public health concern (). Problematic mobile phone use (PMPU) refers to a pattern of poorly regulated use characterized by craving, withdrawal-like experiences, impaired control, and functional impairment, and it is often discussed within the broader framework of behavioral addiction (). Epidemiological evidence suggests that PMPU is particularly common among university students in China, with reported prevalence estimates ranging from 21.3% to nearly half of undergraduate samples (, ). This pattern is concerning because PMPU has been associated with adverse developmental outcomes, including compromised academic performance (), sleep disturbances (), and elevated risks of psychopathology such as depression and anxiety (). Identifying factors that may precede changes in PMPU is therefore important for prevention and intervention. Although previous studies have examined relatively stable individual characteristics, such as neuroticism and impulsivity, as risk factors (), these trait-level explanations do not fully account for why PMPU may fluctuate across the university transition. Situational academic stressors, particularly academic burnout, may provide a more dynamic explanation for changes in mobile phone overuse during this period. A key unresolved issue is whether academic burnout merely co-occurs with PMPU because some students are generally more vulnerable to both problems, or whether increases in burnout within the same student prospectively precede later increases in PMPU. Academic burnout, originally conceptualized in occupational research, refers in students to exhaustion from study demands, cynical or detached attitudes toward schoolwork, and a reduced sense of academic efficacy (). The association between academic burnout and PMPU can be understood by integrating Conservation of Resources (COR) theory () with the Compensatory Internet Use Theory (CIUT) (). According to COR theory, individuals strive to obtain, protect, and restore valued resources. When resource loss is experienced or anticipated, individuals may seek strategies that reduce further depletion or provide short-term recovery (). CIUT helps explain why mobile phone use may become one such strategy. Students experiencing burnout may have limited energy for active, problem-focused coping (). Mobile phones provide an immediately available, low-effort, and immersive route to distraction, social contact, and temporary relief+. A. Over time, however, repeated reliance on this coping route may be associated with poorer self-regulation and more severe PMPU symptoms. Thus, PMPU is best understood in the present study as a potential maladaptive coping response linked to academic resource depletion, rather than as a direct or inevitable consequence of burnout.