Anxiety Increases With Online Health Searches

Posted on October 28, 2013

A hypochondriac can turn indigestion into a heart attack faster than you can say myocardial infarction. And thanks to the internet’s unlimited supply of medical information, there’s an online version of the condition—call it cyberchondria.

Now a study has identified which people are most at risk of becoming victims of serious cyberchondria.

The results: those volunteers who were poorest at dealing with uncertainty did the most searching about symptoms and illnesses. And as they searched, their levels of anxiety significantly increased. The study is in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking.

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Category(s):Anxiety

Source material from Scientific American