Cyberchondria Scale (CS): Development, validity and reliability study

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the current study is to develop culture specific, multidimensional and self-report Cyberchondria Scale (CS) which can be used to evaluate one’s emotional, cognitive and behavioral tendency to cyberchondria and to determine the psychometric properties of this scale. Method: The study was conducted with two different samples consisted of Internet users. To investigate the factor structure, the first sample was composed of 250 (49.6% women, 50.4% men) individuals aged between 18 and 65. The second sample in which confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted consisted of 360 (61.1% women, 38.3% men) individuals aged between 18 and 65. In addition to CS, Internet Addiction Scale (IAS), Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI) and Health Anxiety Inventory (HAI) were used in this study. Results: The exploratory and CFA revealed a five-factor structure called “Factors Increasing Anxiety”, “Compulsion/Hypochondria”, “Factors Decreasing Anxiety”, “Doctor-Patient Interaction”, “Dysfunctional Internet Use”. The model obtained by CFA represented acceptable goodness of fit values and other reliability and validity values were found to be satisfactory. Conclusion: CS could be evaluated as a valid and reliable scale which would be used in clinical and health psychology studies conducted in Turkey.