Salama Osama E, Abou El Naga Randa M
J Egypt Public Health Assoc. 2004;79(3-4):197-223.
The issue of possible health effects of cellular phones is very much alive in the public's mind where the rapid increase in the number of the users of cell phones in the last decade has increased the exposure of people to the electromagnetic fields (EMFs). Health consequences of long term use of mobile phones are not known in detail but available data indicates the development of non specific annoying symptoms on acute exposure to mobile phone radiations. In an attempt to determine the prevalence of such cell phones associated health manifestations and the factors affecting their occurrence, a cross sectional study was conducted in five randomly selected faculties of Alexandria University. Where, 300 individuals including teaching staff, students and literate employee were equally allocated and randomly selected among the five faculties. Data about mobile phone's users and their medical history, their pattern of mobile usage and the possible deleterious health manifestations associated with cellular phone use was collected. The results revealed 68% prevalence of mobile phone usage, nearly three quarters of them (72.5%) were complainers of the health manifestations. They suffered from headache (43%), earache (38.3%), sense of fatigue (31.6%), sleep disturbance (29.5%), concentration difficulty (28.5%) and face burning sensation (19.2%). Both univariate and multivariate analysis were consistent in their findings. Symptomatic users were found to have significantly higher frequency of calls/day, longer call duration and longer total duration of mobile phone usage/day than non symptomatic users. For headache both call duration and frequency of calls/day were the significant predicting factors for its occurrence (chi2 = 18.208, p = 0.0001). For earache, in addition to call duration, the longer period of owning the mobile phone were significant predictors (chi2 = 16.996, p = 0.0002). Sense of fatigue was significantly affected by both call duration and age of the user (chi2 = 24.214, p = 0.0000), while burning sensation was only affected by frequency of calls/day (chi2 = 5.360, p = 0.020). According to the 95% confidence interval of frequency and duration of calls, the study recommended not to increase the call duration more than four minutes and limit their frequency to less than seven calls/day with total duration of exposure less than 22 min./day.
手机对健康可能产生的影响这一问题在公众心中备受关注，过去十年手机用户数量的迅速增长增加了人们接触电磁场（EMF）的机会。长期使用手机对健康的影响尚不清楚，但现有数据表明，急性接触手机辐射会引发非特异性的恼人症状。为了确定此类与手机相关的健康表现的发生率以及影响其发生的因素，在亚历山大大学随机选取的五个学院进行了一项横断面研究。在这五个学院中，包括教师、学生和有文化的员工在内的300人被平均分配并随机选取。收集了关于手机用户及其病史、手机使用模式以及与手机使用相关的可能有害健康表现的数据。结果显示，手机使用率为68%，其中近四分之三（72.5%）有健康方面的抱怨。他们出现头痛（43%）、耳痛（38.3%）、疲劳感（31.6%）、睡眠障碍（29.5%）、注意力难以集中（28.5%）和面部烧灼感（19.2%）。单因素和多因素分析结果一致。有症状的用户每天通话次数、通话时长和手机使用总时长均显著高于无症状用户。对于头痛，通话时长和每天通话次数都是其发生的显著预测因素（卡方 = 18.208，p = 0.0001）。对于耳痛，除通话时长外，拥有手机的时间越长也是显著预测因素（卡方 = 16.996，p = 0.0002）。疲劳感受通话时长和用户年龄的显著影响（卡方 = 24.214，p = 0.0000），而面部烧灼感仅受每天通话次数的影响（卡方 = 5.360，p = 0.020）。根据通话频率和时长的95%置信区间，该研究建议通话时长增加不要超过4分钟，并将通话频率限制在每天少于7次，总暴露时长少于每天22分钟。
