Relationship between Health-Anxiety and Cyberchondria: Role of Metacognitive Beliefs

The current study was designed to examine the relationship between health anxiety, cyberchondria (its constructs), and metacognitive beliefs. In addition, it also evaluated the moderating role of metacognitive beliefs in this relationship.

The present study used the purposive sampling technique to acquire a sample of (N = 500) adults, among them (N = 256) women and (N = 244) men, and the age of the sample ranged from 20 to 50 years. Short Health Anxiety Inventory, Cyberchondria Severity Scale, and Metacognitions Questionnaire-Health Anxiety were used to operationalize the present study variables.

The descriptive statistics revealed that all instruments have good psychometric properties, as Cronbach's alpha coefficients for all scales are ≥0.70. In addition to this, the Pearson correlation showed that all variables of the present study have a significant positive correlation with each other. Furthermore, the regression analysis described that health anxiety and metacognitive beliefs (biased thinking and beliefs about uncontrollable thoughts) were the significant positive predictors of cyberchondria. Moreover, moderation analysis showed that metacognitive beliefs significantly strengthened the association between health anxiety and cyberchondria and its constructs.

The present study will help medical practitioners to understand how metacognitive beliefs and health anxiety can cause an increase in cyberchondria. This will help them to design better treatment plans for people with cyberchondria.