Pediatric nurses who report a stronger fear of being disconnected from their mobile phones also report more missed nursing care, according to a cross-sectional study conducted at two major pediatric hospitals in Tehran, Iran. The research, published in BMC Nursing, examined whether nomophobia—the fear of being without one’s mobile phone—was associated with required nursing interventions that are delayed, partially performed, or omitted entirely.
Omitted or delayed interventions threaten patient safety, and the concern is heightened in pediatric settings, where young patients are particularly vulnerable. Earlier studies have linked nomophobia among healthcare professionals to impaired concentration and clinical performance, but its relationship with missed care had remained unclear, especially among nurses caring for children.
The study was carried out from June to July 2026 at the Children’s Medical Center and Bahrami Hospital. Using simple random sampling, the researchers recruited 210 pediatric nurses.
The analysis combined descriptive statistics with Pearson’s correlation and multiple linear regression. On average, participants showed a moderate level of nomophobia, with a mean NMP-Q score of 82.28 (standard deviation 21.84). The mean missed nursing care score was 2.80 (standard deviation 0.72), slightly below the midpoint of the scale, indicating that missed care occurred at a modest but measurable level in these hospitals.
The central finding was a statistically significant positive correlation between nomophobia and missed nursing care (r = 0.195, P = 0.005). In other words, nurses with higher nomophobia scores tended to report more missed care.
Multiple linear regression sharpened the picture by testing which factors were independently associated with missed care. Higher nomophobia scores remained a significant predictor (β = 0.174, P = 0.008), and caring for more than three patients per shift emerged as a stronger one (β = 0.467, P < 0.001). This means that both the psychological factor and the workload factor contributed to missed care independently of each other, rather than one simply standing in for the other.
The authors conclude that higher nomophobia and greater patient workload were independently associated with more frequent missed nursing care, and they suggest that psychological and work-related factors may both be relevant to this problem among pediatric nurses. Because the design is cross-sectional, the data show associations at a single point in time and cannot establish that nomophobia causes missed care; it is equally possible that demanding conditions feed phone dependence, or that unmeasured factors influence both.
The scope of the findings is also limited to pediatric nurses in two Tehran hospitals sampled in mid-2026, so generalization to other settings or countries requires further study. The authors recommend that future research evaluate the effect of improving staffing levels and of supportive interventions addressing nomophobia on missed nursing care—proposals that remain to be tested rather than demonstrated by this study.
Subject of Research: The association between nomophobia and missed nursing care among pediatric nurses
Article Title: The relationship between nomophobia and missed nursing care in pediatric nurses: a cross-sectional study
Article References: Rajabi, M. M., Talesh, M., Jafari Larimi, F., Amiri, H., Ahmadzadeh-zeidi, M. J., & Khoshnavay Fomani, F. (2026). The relationship between nomophobia and missed nursing care in pediatric nurses: a cross-sectional study. BMC Nursing. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12912-026-05531-w
Image Credits: AI Generated
DOI: 10.1186/s12912-026-05531-w
Keywords: nomophobia, missed nursing care, pediatric nurses, cross-sectional study, patient safety, nursing workload, mobile phone dependence, Iran, MISSCARE Survey, NMP-Q, care quality, hospital nursing
News Source: Harold Sullivan. (October 29, 2026). Fear of being without a phone linked to missed nursing care in pediatric nurses. Scienmag.
