Knowra Cyberchondria Cyberchondria Cyberchondria is health anxiety caused or intensified by repeated online searches for medical information. It can involve escalating searches, distress, and repeated reassurance-seeking.
Health anxiety : Persistent worry about having or developing a serious illness, often despite limited medical evidence. Cyberchondria is a digitally amplified form of health anxiety.
Illness anxiety disorder : A mental disorder involving persistent fear of having or acquiring a serious illness, usually with few or no physical symptoms. It is a diagnostic concept related to, but not synonymous with, cyberchondria.
Search engine : A software system that retrieves and ranks information in response to a query. Search ranking can determine which health explanations appear most prominent.
Cyberchondria Severity Scale : A questionnaire developed to measure dimensions of distress associated with online health searches. It operationalizes features such as excessiveness and distress linked to searching.
Reassurance seeking : Repeatedly seeking confirmation that a feared outcome is unlikely or absent. Online symptom searches can become repeated attempts to obtain reassurance.
Somatic symptom disorder : A disorder involving distressing physical symptoms and excessive thoughts, feelings, or behaviors related to them. Cyberchondria may center on feared illness even when prominent physical symptoms are absent.
Health misinformation : False or misleading claims about health, disease, or medical care. Unreliable results can intensify fear or misdirect attempts to understand symptoms.
Internet addiction : A proposed pattern of excessive internet use associated with impaired functioning or distress. Cyberchondria concerns health-focused searching, not internet use in general.
Compulsive behavior : Repetitive actions performed to reduce distress, often despite unwanted consequences. Some people continue searching even when each search increases their distress.
Hypochondriasis : A historical diagnostic term for persistent fear or belief that one has a serious illness. Cyberchondria is often discussed as a modern, internet-linked expression of hypochondriacal concerns.
Show all 21