130 - Cyberchondria and Health Information Seeking: A Scoping Review

Objectives: To provide an overview of the literature on cyberchondria, as it relates to online health information seeking behavior, in order to guide professional practice in consumer health settings such as libraries.

Methods: A scoping review was conducted using the PRISMA Scoping Review Extension. Web of Science, Scopus, PubMed, APA PsycInfo, CINAHL, Communication & Mass Media Complete, Computers & Applied Sciences Complete were searched in January 2022. Included articles were required to use the term “cyberchondria” and to focus on libraries or information seeking behavior.

The search term used was cyberchondria*. Database searches were conducted on January 19, 2022 and brought back 675 articles. Only 346 articles remained after the duplicate articles were removed. Two reviewers conducted two independent rounds of screening, first the title/abstract and then the full-text of the article. The remaining 87 articles were entered into a database and coded by theme. These articles were entered into a database and coded by theme.

Results: Key themes that emerged included Health anxiety/anxiety/OCD; Information seeking behavior; Cyberchondria Severity Scale; Internet use or Internet addiction; COVID-19; Misinformation; Self-diagnosis; Information overload; and Symptom checkers. The most frequently cited journals where the Journal of Anxiety Disorders (8 articles), Journal of Medical Internet Research (6 articles), and Current Psychology (5 articles). Included articles’ publication dates ranged from 2006-2022, with the vast majority (59 articles) being published between 2019-2021.

Conclusions: Previous research has established that there is a strong relationship between health anxiety and cyberchondria, which suggests that library patrons with health anxiety might especially be prone to experiencing counterproductive outcomes from online health information seeking. The practical implications of this relationship for libraries providing consumer health information services are not explicit. This research suggests avenues for future research to improve the applicability of scholarly literature on this topic to the library and information science field.