Preschoolers’ mental health status based on their mobile gadget usage

Abstract Recently, the high number of mobile gadget usage by parents has increased its usage by the children, resulting positive and negative effects. One of the negative effects is mental health problems. Therefore, parents should pay attention to their children’s mobile gadget usage and check their emotional status. This research aims at investigating the relationship between the mobile gadget usage based on American Academy of Pediatrics’ recommendation and children’s mental health status based on the Mental Health Problem Questionnaire (KMEE). This research is an analytic observation research using a cross-sectional approach. The samples of this research were 70 preschoolers taken from three kindergartens in Bandung Wetan sub-district selected using cluster random sampling technique. The research found that 39 preschoolers used gadgets more than one hour a day, and 36 of them had deviant mental health status. The statistical calculations using Chi-Square showed that there was a significant relationship between mobile gadget usage based on the duration of use and mental health status. Children’s mobile gadget usage that did not follow AAP recommendations could give a negative effect on children’s mental health status. Whereas, mobile gadget usage that followed AAP recommendations could improve children’s development of cognition, language, and social skills.