RESEARCH ARTICLE


Childhood Trauma, Reflective Functioning, and Problematic Mobile Phone Use Among Male and Female Adolescents



Alessandro Musetti1, Francesca Brazzi2, Maria C. Folli2, Giuseppe Plazzi3, 4, Christian Franceschini2, *
1 Department of Humanities, Social Sciences and Cultural Industries, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
2 Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Parma, Italy
3 Department of Biomedical and Neuromotor Sciences, Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
4 IRCCS Institute of Neurological Sciences, Bologna, Italy


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Creative Commons License
© 2020 Musetti et al.

open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

* Address correspondence to Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Parma, Parma, Italy, Via Gramsci, 14, 43126 Parma, Italy, E-mail: christian.franceschini@unipr.it


Abstract

Background:

The association between traumatic experiences, different forms of emotion dysregulation and problematic technology uses is well established. However, little is known about the role of childhood traumatic experiences and reflective functioning in the onset and maintenance of mobile phone addiction symptoms among adolescents.

Methods:

Self-reported measures on childhood traumatic experiences, reflective functioning, and Problematic Mobile Phone Use (PMPU) were administered to 466 high school students (47.1% females) aged 13-19 years old. Participants also reported the number of hours per day spent on using a mobile phone.

Results:

Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that increased time spent on the mobile phone, low reflective functioning scores and high childhood trauma scores predicted PMPU scores in the sample. Moreover, two gender-specific pathways were found. Among males, PMPU was positively related to time spent on mobile phone and childhood traumatic experiences and negatively related to reflective functioning. Among females, PMPU was negatively associated with time spent on mobile phone for video gaming and with reflective functioning.

Conclusion:

These results might have relevant clinical implications in highlighting the importance of planning gender-tailored interventions for adolescents who report mobile phone addiction symptoms.

Keywords: Problematic mobile phone use, Childhood traumatic experiences, Reflective functioning, Gender differences, Adolescence, Internet technology.