Nomophobia Among Adolescents in Kyrgyzstan: Scores, Dimensions, and Associations With Smartphone‐Use Patterns

Background and Aims: This study examines overall and dimension-specific nomophobia scores among adolescents in Kyrgyzstan and analyzes their associations with demographic characteristics and smartphone-use patterns. Results: The overall item-level nomophobia score was 2.62 (SD = 0.81). Among the four dimensions, Not Being Able to Communicate had the highest mean score, whereas Losing Connectedness had the lowest. Female adolescents reported significantly higher observed nomophobia scores than males; however, measurement invariance across gender was not examined, and this comparison should therefore be interpreted cautiously. No significant differences were found according to age, grade level, or parental attitudes toward internet and social media use. Significant omnibus ANOVA results were observed for both years of smartphone use and daily smartphone-use duration. However, none of the Tukey-adjusted pairwise comparisons for years of smartphone use reached statistical significance; therefore, no differences between specific smartphone-ownership-duration groups were identified. Tukey-adjusted post hoc comparisons for daily smartphone use showed that adolescents using smartphones for 4-6 h and 7 h or more per day had higher nomophobia scores than those using them for 1-3 h per day. The final regression model was statistically significant and explained 19.3% of the variance; in this model, the 1-3-h category was associated with lower nomophobia scores than the 4-6-h reference category. Conclusion: Nomophobia among adolescents in Kyrgyzstan was primarily associated with communication-related concerns, gender, and current daily smartphone-use patterns. Female gender and more intensive daily smartphone use showed stronger associations with nomophobia than age, grade level, parental attitudes, or duration of smartphone ownership. Given the cross-sectional design, convenience sampling, self-report data, and limited explained variance, the findings should be interpreted as associations rather than causal or clinical evidence.