Abstract

College-age individuals walked frequently. One factor that might contribute to increase unsafe crossing behaviors among this group is distraction while use of mobile phone and personal music devices. The main of this study was examining the effect of mobile phone use and personal music devices on crossing behaviors among Iranian medical college students. Two hundred seventy eight college students registered to participation in a cross-sectional study. Participants selected randomly from eight faculties of Isfahan University of medical science, Isfahan, Iran. Data was calculated by self- report questionnaire that measured crossing behaviors. Data were analyzed by statistical software SPSS version 21 by conducting independent sample t- test and chi-square test. Mean age of study participants was 23.16 ± 3.66 years. One hundred thirty one (71.9) undergraduate students and 78 (28.1) were graduate students. Use of mobile phone and personal music devices in males was more than females. Males reported performing unsafe crossing behaviors while using of mobile phone, writing text message and listening to music on personal music devices more than females (p<0.05). Multivariate general linear model analysis showed a significant correlation between use of mobile phone (value= 0.099, df=7, P= 0.001), personal music devices (value= 0.54, df=7, P= 0.036) and writing text message (value= 0.53, df=7, P= 0.038) with unsafe crossing. In Conclusion, Use of mobile phone, music devices and writing text message appears to impair crossing behaviors related to road safety. Design and implementing interventions that highlight the dangers of using electronic devices while crossing is suggested.