Problematic social media use and self-rated health among Swedish adolescents : Is the association moderated by perceived familial social support?

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to explore the association between problematic social media use (PSMU) and self-rated health (SRH) among Swedish adolescent boys and girls, and additionally to examine whether perceived familial social support buffers against poor health in the same association. The study was based on the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey from 2017/2018. The study sample consisted of 3371 adolescents from 213 schools across Sweden. PSMU was used as the exposure variable, SRH as theoutcome variable, age and gender as control variables, and perceived familial social support was applied as a moderator between PSMU and SRH. The analyses performed in the current study was cross-tabulations, binary logistic regression, multiplicative and additive interaction analysis. The results revealed that there is a significant association between PSMU and SRHamong Swedish adolescents. Adolescents with moderate level PSMU had 2.77 higher odds of reporting less than good health (95% CI 2.00-3.84) in comparison to adolescents with low levels of PSMU. Adolescents with high level PSMU had furthermore 4.16 odds of reporting less than good health PSMU (95% CI 2.41-7.20) in comparison to adolescents with low levelPSMU. The association between PSMU and SRH remained statistically significant even after adjusting for age, gender, and perceived familial social support. The interaction analyses did moreover reveal that perceived familial social support may play a crucial role by mitigating the effects of high level PSMU on SRH among Swedish adolescents. In a conclusion, it is of vital importance to understand PSMU in relation to the social context to better understand PSMU and prevent young people from poor SRH. Future research may address the same association but in relation to other social factors, such as socioeconomic status, to achieveenhanced understanding over the association between PSMU and SRH and how to better prevent poor health among young people. Policy makers could furthermore introduce support programs for families/parents who feel they lack confidence in the ability to act as sufficient support, which may reduce the risk for poor health among young people.