Letter to the Editor

Murmurs: How reliable is information on the internet?

Seeking online health information may reinforce the anxiety of those who are already overly anxious about their health. This study explored how people with health anxiety may behave differently in terms of their attentional biases when seeking health information online. We conducted an eye-tracking experiment with 17 participants in the high health anxious group and 17 participants in the low health anxious group, who performed three types of information-seeking tasks (factual, interpretive, and exploratory) on a Chinese health website. We observed that both groups mainly allocated their attention to the stages of evaluating the list of search results and synthesizing information to make health decisions. They showed similar attention tracks at the earlier search stages and health anxiety was found to associate with attentional biases towards certain website stimuli. However, the high health anxious group showed more active eye movements than their low health anxious counterparts. Attentional biases from the high health anxious group mainly occurred at the later stage of processing rather than the initial orientation stages. As for task types, the high health anxious group presented more extensive attentional biases when performing the interpretive task, compared to the explorative and factual tasks. The findings provide novel insights into the attentional biases of people with health anxiety as they search online for health information, which have implications on designing more effective information interventions for vulnerable groups of health information consumers. The findings can also help clinicians interpret patients’ anxiety-related sensations and provide intervening recommendations for clients in use of online health information.

This study examined the relationship between health anxiety and searching for health information online, a phenomenon dubbed ‘cyberchondria’. The majority of those with ‘high’ (n = 46) and ‘low’ (n = 36) levels of health anxiety reported seeking health information online. However, those with higher levels of health anxiety sought online health information more frequently, spent longer searching, and found searching more distressing and anxiety provoking. Furthermore, more responses in the high than low health anxiety group related to searching for information on diagnosed and undiagnosed medical conditions, descriptions of others’ experiences of illnesses and using message boards/support groups, although the largest proportion of responses in both groups was accounted for by seeking information on symptoms. Linear regression (n = 167) revealed significant relationships between health anxiety and the frequency, duration and distress and anxiety associated with searching for health information online. This preliminary data suggests that searching for health information online may exacerbate health anxiety.