Moving toward a metacognitive conceptualization of cyberchondria: Examining the contribution of metacognitive beliefs, beliefs about rituals, and stop signals.
Journal article
Fergus, TA and Spada, MM (2018). Moving toward a metacognitive conceptualization of cyberchondria: Examining the contribution of metacognitive beliefs, beliefs about rituals, and stop signals. Journal of Anxiety Disorders. 60, pp. 11-19. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2018.09.003
Authors | Fergus, TA and Spada, MM |
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Abstract | Cyberchondria refers to the repeated use of the Internet to search for health information that leads to negative consequences. The present set of studies examined the tenability of a proposed metacognitive conceptualization of cyberchondria that includes metacognitive beliefs about health-related thoughts, beliefs about rituals, and stop signals. The contribution of those variables to cyberchondria was examined among 330 undergraduate students from a U.S. university in Study 1 and 331 U.S. community respondents in Study 2. All participants reported using the Internet to search for health information. Across both studies, metacognitive beliefs, beliefs about rituals, and stop signals shared positive bivariate associations with cyberchondria and accounted for unique variance in cyberchondria scores in multivariate analyses. Beliefs about rituals and stop signals emerged as relatively specific to cyberchondria versus health anxiety in multivariate analyses. Results provide preliminary support for a metacognitive conceptualization of cyberchondria, with extensions of the present findings discussed. |
Keywords | Beliefs about rituals; Cyberchondria; Health anxiety; Metacognitive beliefs; Stop signals; 1103 Clinical Sciences; 1701 Psychology; Clinical Psychology |
Year | 2018 |
Journal | Journal of Anxiety Disorders |
Journal citation | 60, pp. 11-19 |
ISSN | 0887-6185 |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.janxdis.2018.09.003 |
Publication dates | |
06 Oct 2018 | |
Publication process dates | |
Deposited | 18 Oct 2018 |
Accepted | 28 Sep 2018 |
Accepted author manuscript | License File Access Level Open |
https://openresearch.lsbu.ac.uk/item/8692x
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Accepted author manuscript
Fergus, T. A. & Spada, M. M. Moving toward a metacognitive conceptualization of Cyberchondria.docx | ||
License: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 | ||
File access level: Open |
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