Screen time and musculoskeletal pain in adolescents: A systematic review

Aim: To analyze the association between screen time and musculoskeletal pain in adolescents. Materials and methods: A systematic review was carried out by analyzing publications of articles indexed in the National Library of Medicine (Medline / Pubmed), Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences (LILACS), Scientific Electronic Library Online (Scielo), Cochrane Library and Scopus, in Portuguese, English and Spanish, with no restrictions regarding the date of publication. The following descriptors were used: ‘Screen Time’, ‘Musculoskeletal Pain’ and ‘Adolescent’ and their synonyms, recognized by the MeSH and DeCS vocabulary. These descriptors were crossed using the Boolean operators ANDandOR. 766 articles were found, 707 of which were selected to have their titles and abstracts read. Amongthese articles, 13 were selected for full reading and after this stage, 7 articles were selected to be included in this present review. Results: The results showed an association between screen time and musculoskeletal pain, with the thoracolumbar, back and cervical regions being the most frequent anatomical locations. Screen times greater than 4 hours leads to musculoskeletal pain. The intensity of the pain depends on the frequency of use of the screens, as well as on the simultaneous use of these devices. Conclusion: An association was observed between the use of digital screens and musculoskeletal pain, indicating that the excessive and simultaneous use of digital screens causes damage to the lives of adolescents. In addition, there is a notable gap in the literature on the subject, reinforcing the need for more studies to be carried out, so that specific health strategies can be created for this population.