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gholam reza manshaei; Farzaneh Bagherian
Abstract
Objective: In today's world, the Internet has become a very important and vital part of our lives. One of the harmful effects of excessive use of the Internet in relation to health is cyberchondria. This related to an increase in the level of anxiety or health distress, and in other words, it is a type ...
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Objective: In today's world, the Internet has become a very important and vital part of our lives. One of the harmful effects of excessive use of the Internet in relation to health is cyberchondria. This related to an increase in the level of anxiety or health distress, and in other words, it is a type of anxiety that leads to searching for health-related information online, and this causes an increase in the level of anxiety, worry and unnecessary expenses. The aim of this study was to investigate the Psychometric properties of the short form of Cyberchondria questionnaire. Method: The present study applied in terms of purpose and its method is descriptive and psychometric studies. The statistical population of the present study was students of public and private universities in Isfahan in 1398. For the present study, 566 students (344 females and 223 males) from Isfahan University students selected by stratified random sampling method using virtual self-examination questionnaires (McElroy and Shevlin, 2014) and health anxiety questionnaire. (Salkovskis and Warwick, 2002) responded. Research data analyzed using SPSS 23 and AMOS 22 software. Results: The findings showed that in the virtual Cyberchondria questionnaire measurement model, all factor loads including compulsion (0.714), distress (0.878), excessiveness (0.805), and reassurance (0.921) were significant. (P <0.001). In addition, the CVI coefficient for all items of the Cyberchondria questionnaire was higher than 0.9 and the intra-class correlation coefficient of the questionnaire resulting from its two implementation was equal to 0.971, which is at a safe distance and is higher than the acceptable value. The reliability obtained using Cronbach's alpha and halving coefficient for the whole questionnaire and all four dimensions is higher than 0.7. The findings also showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between Cyberchondria questionnaire and health anxiety (P <0.001) and the correlation coefficient of the two questionnaires was 0.782. Conclusion: Health-related internet use, in the context of health anxiety is best conceptualized as health-related safety behavior maintained through intermittent reinforcement. In general, according to the results of validity and reliability, the virtual autopsy questionnaire can used in psychological research. Also, these results support the psychometric characteristics and validity of the virtual self-diagnosis questionnaire among the non-clinical sample, and it can be said that this questionnaire is approved in the Iranian sample and has psychometric characteristics and practical tools for diagnosis. It can also used in a short period of time due to the short length of the too
Asghar Fouladi; Ali khademi; Ali Shaker Dioulagh
Abstract
Objective: Nurses are more often exposed to cyberchondria owing to their frequent contact with patients. Thus, the present study was carried out to compare the effectiveness of metacognitive and compassion therapies on the level of cyberchondria symptoms in nurses. Method: The research utilized an experimental ...
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Objective: Nurses are more often exposed to cyberchondria owing to their frequent contact with patients. Thus, the present study was carried out to compare the effectiveness of metacognitive and compassion therapies on the level of cyberchondria symptoms in nurses. Method: The research utilized an experimental method involving a pre-test, post-test and follow-up design. As for the sample size, 60 nurses from hospitals in Tabriz participated in the research in 2022. Through random selection, the nurses were assigned to three groups, i.e. metacognitive therapy, compassion therapy and control group. McLurry and Shevlin’s Cyberchondria Scale (CSS) was employed for data collection. Next, the researchers carried out data analysis with the use of the mixed analysis of variance model, Tukey's and Benferroni's post hoc tests, using SPSS statistical software (version 22). A significant P value of less than 0.05 was observed. Findings: The time factor proved to have a significant impact on the amount of cyberchondria dimensions. In other words, the level of cyberchondria dimensions decreased from pre-test to follow-up. Moreover, the interaction effect of time and group also revealed that there were significant variations among the three groups (i.e. metacognitive therapy group, compassion therapy group and control group) in terms of compulsion, distress, excessiveness and reassurance. In other words, the level of cyberchondria dimensions in the intervention groups was lower than that of the control group in the post-test and the follow-up phases. Conclusion: Given the effectiveness of metacognitive and compassion therapies on cyberchondria symptoms, it seems that the application of metacognitive therapy and compassion therapy interventions will alleviate and treat cyberchondria symptoms in nurses.
