Abstract
With the rapid growth of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), individuals may try to find related medical information using the internet to overcome their fears. Under such circumstances, individuals with the features of cyberchondria, anxiety sensitivity, and metacognitive beliefs in negative thoughts may suffer more fears than those without these features. Therefore, the present study proposed a model to understand the associations between problematic internet use (PIU), cyberchondria, anxiety sensitivity, metacognition beliefs, and fear of COVID-19. Utilizing a cross-sectional online survey, 651 Iranians completed the following psychometric scales: Metacognition Questionnaire-30 (MCQ-30), Anxiety Sensitivity Questionnaire (ASI), Cyberchondria Severity Scale-Short Form (CSS-12), Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV–19S), and Generalized Problematic Internet Use Scale (GPIUS). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to assess the proposed model via several fit indices. The indices include Tucker-Lewis index (TLI), comparative fit index (CFI), standardized root mean square residual (SRMR), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). The fit indices (CFI = 0.948, TLI = 0.938, RMSEA = 0.053, and SRMR = 0.001) indicated the good fit between the data and the proposed model. Moreover, fear of COVID-19 was significantly and directly predicted by cyberchondria (β = 0.479, p < .001) and anxiety sensitivity (β = 0.286, p < .001). The relationship between PIU and cyberchondria with fear of COVID-19 was mediated significantly by anxiety sensitivity and metacognitive beliefs. Because fear of COVID-19 was found to be significantly associated with cyberchondria and anxiety sensitivity, healthcare providers may want to provide additional support for those with cyberchondria and anxiety sensitivity tendencies.
Highlights
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has plagued the world in recent months, has been the cause of more than 950,000 deaths around the world at the time of writing [1]
Studies have shown that the use of the internet and social networking sites for stress and anxiety reduction has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, and for some individuals, this stress and anxiety reduction may be accompanied by problematic internet use (PIU) [15, 19, 20]
These results show that the relationship between PIU with fear of COVID-19 mediated significantly by cyberchondria, anxiety sensitivity, and metacognitive beliefs
Summary
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which has plagued the world in recent months, has been the cause of more than 950,000 deaths around the world at the time of writing [1]. Many recent studies have investigated psychological issues related to COVID-19 [6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12]. Among the current literature on COVID-19 and psychological health, some psychosocial factors have been found to be crucial in causing and increasing COVID-19 fears that result in serious health problems [5, 10, 13, 14]. Information and medical issues are widely available on the internet in most countries worldwide [16, 17]. Searching for medical information on the internet can be a problem if individuals have little or no medical education, especially when web searches are used as a diagnostic method because this can increase their anxiety [16]
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