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. 2025 Jan 26;51(1):16.
doi: 10.1186/s13052-025-01851-w.

Prolonged screen time is associated with increased severity of tic symptoms in children with tic disorders

Zakaria Ahmed Mohamed  1   2 , Hanyu Dong  1   2 , Yang Xue  1   2 , Miaoshui Bai  1   2 , Yuling Ouyang  1   2 , Feiyong Jia  3   4
Affiliations

Prolonged screen time is associated with increased severity of tic symptoms in children with tic disorders

Zakaria Ahmed Mohamed et al. Ital J Pediatr. .

Abstract

Background: Recent studies have emphasized the association between prolonged screen exposure and neurodevelopmental disorders, though its correlation with tic disorders (TDs) remains ambiguous. We thus conducted this study to investigate the association between screen time (ST) and the severity of tic symptoms in children diagnosed with TDs.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective case-control study with 342 cases of TDs and 270 controls, collecting data from March 2021 to December 2023. The main exposure variable was daily ST for each child, and tic severity, evaluated using the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS), was the outcome variable. Statistical analysis included descriptive statistics, Pearson's correlation analysis to examine the relationship between screen time and tic severity, and multivariate regression analysis to evaluate the predictive power of screen time for tic symptoms.

Results: Our findings revealed that children with TDs had significantly longer ST compared to the control group, averaging 116.06 ± 147.9 min/day versus 43.23 ± 37.5 min/day, p < 0.001. We also noted a positive correlation between ST and TDs( r = 0.461, p < 0.01). Daily ST was a significant predictor of overall YGTSS scores (t = 9.58, p < 0.001), suggesting that increased ST is associated with heightened tic symptoms. However, age of first exposure to screens was not significantly correlated with tic severity (p > 0.05). Though we observed a negative correlation between ST and vitamin D levels, the results were not statistically significant (p > 0.05).

Conclusion: Children with TDs had longer ST compared to their control's counterparts, and prolonged ST was significantly associated with heightened tic severity, which highlights the critical need for careful monitoring and regulation of screen time in children with TDs.

Keywords: Children; Screen time; Tic disorders; YGTSS.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethical approval and consent to Participate: The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of First Hospital of Jilin University and have therefore been performed in accordance with the ethical standards laid down in the Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments. The informed consent was provided by the parents or caregivers of the children. Consent for publication: Not Applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding the publication of this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Serum vitamin D levels in children with tic disorders
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