Health Anxiety Clinical Trial
Official title:
An Examination of the Effects of Health-related Internet Use in Individuals With Pathological Health Anxiety Using Ambulatory Assessment
The purpose of the current explorative study is to examine the effects of health-related internet use in individuals with pathological health anxiety using ambulatory assessment. In a naturalistic setting participants answer over a seven-day period questionnaires about their health-related internet use and its effects on affect, health anxiety and symptom severity in their usual daily lives.
The internet is a popular method for obtaining information. Increasingly, it is also used to
answer medical and health questions, because compared to other methods (e.g. going to the
library or visiting a doctor) it has a number of advantages to offer like low costs,
availability, easy accessibility, anonymity, and great diversity of information types and
sources. 60 to 80 percent of internet users search online for medical information. In this
context the term "cyberchondria" was coined in the media to describe the potentially
detrimental effects of this behavior. The first studies in this field using self-report
retrospective data showed that individuals with elevated levels of health anxiety seem to
make increased use of the internet for this purpose and it seems to maintain health anxiety
in the long-term. However, up until today little is known about the consequences of this
behavior and the maintaining mechanism.
This observational study aims to investigate the effects of health-related internet use in
individuals with pathological health anxiety in a naturalistic setting using ambulatory
assessment. The variables of interest are monitored using time- and event-based sampling
methods. Therefore, over a seven-day period participants answer seven times a day
questionnaires on a mobile phone in their usual daily lives and additionally track the
variables of interest in the moment the target behavior (health-related internet use)
occurs. To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate these relations using
ambulatory assessment and therefore additionally aims to investigate the feasibility of this
study design in this specific field of research.
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Observational Model: Case-Only, Time Perspective: Prospective
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