Psychological constructs have been identified in a new study that predict the tendency to search excessively for health-related information on the internet while experiencing spiralling anxiety. Health anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms were found to be significant predictors of this behavior in a study published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research.
Many people are now looking for information on health-related topics on search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. A quick search for a medical question can lead to increased anxiety because the information available online is not always accurate or helpful. Cyberchondria is a term coined by researchers to describe an overzealous searcher.
Anxiety-inducing internet searches for health-related information are known as cyberchondria. While conducting health-related searches, people with cyberchondria feel compelled to continue, according to Stylianos Arsenakis and his team of researchers. They may lose faith in their doctor as they go along.
Health anxiety, intolerance of uncertainty, and obsessive-compulsive disorder have all been linked to cyberchondria in the minds of psychologists (OCD). There is no scientific consensus as to which of these models is most relevant, according to Arsenakis and his team of researchers. For this purpose, researchers conducted a study to find out which models are most useful in describing the progression and severity of cyberchondria.
A survey was completed by 749 people who said they had researched health information online in the last three months. Participants ranged in age from 18 to 75, hailing from a variety of countries and speaking English as their first language (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland).
Subscales for excessiveness of behavior, compulsion, distress, reassurance-seeking, and distrust of medical personnel were completed by the participants. Health anxiety, general anxiety, OCD symptoms, intolerance of uncertainty, depressive symptoms, and somatic symptoms were also measured (e.g., headache, nausea).
There were no significant predictors of cyberchondria severity in a multiple regression analysis except for general anxiety. After controlling for age, sex, and education, the six variables explained 53 percent of the variance in cyberchondria severity. Intolerance of uncertainty and somatic symptoms as well as health anxiety and OCD symptoms were found to be predictors of poor health. More severe cyberchondria was predicted by lower levels of depressive symptoms.
People with depression are less likely to conduct online health searches, according to these findings. A “passivity, resignation, or surrender” to the possibility of illness is what the study’s authors speculate may be the result of depression, they write. Anxiety, on the other hand, may be the driving force behind people’s online health searches.
OCD symptoms and depressive symptoms were the second and third most significant predictors of health anxiety. The researchers found that health anxiety, rather than general anxiety, was a significant predictor of a person’s likelihood of having a heart attack. This suggests that the link between cyberchondria and anxiety about one’s health is a causal one. Those with high levels of health anxiety, obsessional-compulsive disorder, or other somatic symptoms should be tested for cyberchondria, according to Arsenakis and his colleagues.
One of the study’s flaws is that it failed to collect data on the types of health-related websites that participants visited, which may have played a role in the development of cyberchondria. Cyberchondria may be treated with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for health anxiety, according to the researchers.