The Development of Cyberchondria Amid the Pandemic: An Autoregressive Cross-Lagged Model

This study examined how online health information seeking during the early COVID-19 pandemic prospectively contributed to cyberchondria. A three-wave panel survey of Singaporean adults (N_Wave1 = 1,023; N_Wave2 = 767; N_Wave3 = 540) tested reciprocal relationships among information seeking, risk perceptions, negative emotions, information insufficiency, and cyberchondria using autoregressive cross-lagged models. Results showed that more frequent information seeking predicted higher subsequent risk perceptions and negative emotions, while neither risk perceptions nor negative emotions predicted later seeking. Risk perceptions predicted subsequent information insufficiency, but information insufficiency did not predict further seeking or cyberchondria. Ultimately, information seeking and negative emotions, but not risk perceptions or information insufficiency, predicted cyberchondria at Wave 3. These findings highlight the central role of negative emotions in linking online health information seeking to cyberchondria during a public health crisis and point to the importance of both emotional regulation support and curated information environments in mitigating the psychological costs of health-related searching.