Eating and digital gaming in children effect on sleep disorders

Purpose: The research was conducted to determine the effect of digital game addiction on eating problems and sleep disorders of secondary schoolchildren. Material and method: The sample of the research conducted with the relational scanning model; The study consisted of a total of 532 people, including secondary school students (266 students) and their parents (266 parents), who met the research criteria and volunteered. An ethics committee was consulted for the research (annex6). While parents fill out the Child Sleep Habit Questionnaire, one of the scales from which the research data was collected; The students themselves filled out the Sociodemographic Data Form, Child Digital Game Addiction Scale and Eating Attitude Test scales. Descriptive analysis was used to evaluate the data, simple linear regression analysis was used to analyze parametric data, Chi-Square test, Pearson and Spearman Correlation analyzes were used to analyze categorical variables. Results: In the study, it was determined that 52.6% of the secondary school students were girls and 39.1% of the parents were primary school graduates. It was determined that 47.4% of the students were in the "risk group" class in digital game addiction, 35.3% showed "abnormal eating behavior" and almost all of them (94.4%) had "sleeping problems". Regression results showed that digital game addiction explained 5% of eating behavior; gender explains 6% of digital game addiction; Correlation results show that there is a low level positive relationship between the Children's Digital Game Addiction Scale and the Eating Attitude Test (p=,000 ve r=,241). Conclusion: Students' digital game addiction has an impact on eating disorders and sleep problems. Digital game addiction can negatively affect children's physical and mental health, and therefore their academic success. On these issues, it may be recommended that nurses provide education and consultancy services to both students and their parents and take protective measures.