Development of a cyberchondria severity scale for university students during the COVID-19 pandemic (Preprint)

Abstract

Owing to the rapid development of the Internet, individuals can easily obtain health information online, which may positively or negatively affect their thoughts and behaviors. The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic caused millions of deaths worldwide. People’s daily lives were disrupted when restrictions were imposed preventing them from going outside, resulting in reduced physical activity. This phenomenon was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cyberchondria is a hybrid word that signifies a state in which individuals compulsively search for health-related information online because of health distress or anxiety, resulting in symptoms of such conditions. The objective of this study was to develop a university student cyberchondrial severity scale and understand the current situation.

Exploratory factor analysis was conducted using 145 valid questionnaires. Subsequently, a nationwide survey was conducted in various universities in Taiwan; 802 questionnaires were used for confirmatory factor analysis, and the current status of cyberchondria among university students was analyzed.

The factor analysis led to a cyberchondria severity scale for college students with four constructs: increased anxiety (α=.908), obsessive-compulsive hypochondria (α=.865), perceived controllability (α=.884), and online physician-patient interaction (α=.858), and a total scale Cronbach's alpha 0.924, variance of 66.81%. The confirmatory factor analysis showed that item reliability ranged from 0.50 to 0.86, factor loadings ranged from 0.71 to 0.93, and the composite reliability for latent variables ranged from 0.83 to 0.90 (p<.001). The extracted average variance lay from 0.46 and 0.60. There were significant differences in the various dimensions of the university student cyberchondria severity scale, of which perceived controllability had the highest score and obsessive-compulsive hypochondria had the lowest score (F3,2403=256.26, p<.001).

This study is the first to develop a cyberchondria severity scale tailored to university students. The instrument was found to be reliable and valid. The various constructs were significantly correlated with each other, and increased anxiety and obsessive-compulsive hypochondria showed a significant moderate positive correlation with perceived controllability and online physician-patient interaction. These findings provide researchers, policymakers, and practitioners with evidence and opportunities to focus on preventive actions. The study can also be used as a reference for a broad-based qualitative and quantitative study design for future research to obtain a deeper understanding of online information searches and cyberchondria. Since studies on cyberchondrial severity scales are in their infancy, further research should examine the factors affecting cyberchondria, promoting online health information searches, and reading comprehension behavior as possible techniques for development.