#Stressed: Covid-19, Chronic Illness and Technostress

Abstract

The use of online resources, particularly search engines and social media, for health-related information is on a steady upward trajectory. With its accessibility and ease of use, the Internet has founded a new era of information gathering and society has naturally gravitated towards the use of internet-based resources to find out more about all aspects of our own health. While patients with health conditions require timely access to healthcare information, they often use information technology, including social media, to access such informa�tion. Subsequently, patients with chronic illnesses, who have a higher-than-average need for health information, may be exposed to information that is incomplete, conflicting, mis�leading, or inaccurate. This may place patients at increased risk of technostress. Couple this with an increased urgency in accessing online health information to stay abreast of COVID-19 information and there is an increased risk for technostress amongst an already vulnerable group, and scope for this technostress to tip over into the realm of physical and mental health impact.ss further into the use of media platforms that can, in turn, trigger technostress, how can we identify and manage the potential mental health impacts of this illness-stress combination? Additionally, is this group more likely to expe�rience technostress and ensuing physical and mental health impacts as a consequence of their chronic illnesses during the COVID-19 pandemic? With these questions in mind the authors undertook research into this area of crossover between chronic illness and technostress.The study used an onlinA non-probability sampling strategy was used in which an online questionnaire using Google Formse self-report survey among partic�ipants with a chronic health condition. The Technostress Questionnaire, developed by Tarafdar et al. (2011, 2007), was modified and contextualised to the use of social media to access COVID-19 related information.The results demonstrated high levels of technostress with participants experiencing medium to high impact on their overall physical and mental health. Participants reported physical impacts such as stiffness of the neck, shortness of breath, sore throats, and cramps. This may be a result of COVID-19 information manifesting in a stress response, possibly due to persistent stressors interrupting the body’s hormonal regulation. However, respondents also stated the information on COVID-19 that they get through social media had impacts such as loss of appetite, difficulty sleep�ing and loss of libido. Direct mental health impacts were also reported and included anxiety, unhappiness, fear, worry, and withdrawal from their external environment.