Medical students not immune to selfitis: AIIMS Bhubaneswar study
BHUBANESWAR: Aspiring doctors and nurses are not immune to selfitis, indicates a study by AIIMS Bhubaneswar on its students.
According to the study done on more than 600 students, 384 MBBS students and 211 nursing students of the institute, around one-fifth had selfitis (were obsessed with taking selfies). The study was done in April-August 2018 and was published in international journal BMC Public Health recently.
While nearly half of the participants were classified as borderline; (1.3%) had chronic selfitis, and 18.3% participants had acute selfitis, it said.
While one in 10 students reported having taken a dangerous selfie, one in 100 reported to have got injured in the process. While around 70% participants took selfie, 40% of them posted selfies on social media daily. While 38.4% posted selfies on social media one to three times a day, 1.8% posted selfies on social media more than thrice a day.
While 78.6% took selfies daily, 15.5% at least once a week and 5.9% only on special occasions.
The study said posting selfies on social media daily was a risk factor for dangerous selfies. Those who posted selfies daily had taken dangerous selfies. “The possible link is that the appreciation associated with ‘likes’, ‘followers’ and positive comments on social media is rewarding for people with higher levels of loneliness, isolation, and insecurity,” the AIIMS study said.
The habit of taking dangerous selfies were more prevalent in the 17–22 age group compared to those above 23. More males (14.4%), compared to females (4.4%) were in the habit of taking dangerous selfies. The majority (90.9%) of those who took selfies daily took 1 to 4 selfies a day, while 1.2% took more than eight selfies a day.
The study said the findings can’t be generalized to the young population as the sample was limited to medical and nursing students.
Dr Vikas Bhatia, who was one of the co-authors of the study, said the study has tried to explore dangerous selfie, cause of injuries and deaths. “A good percentage of aspiring healthcare professionals too are into selfie habits, which could be dangerous. This has to be discouraged. Personally, I feel there should be multiple no-selfie zones like selfie zones,” he said.