“If I’m someone who doesn’t like uncertainty, I may become more anxious, search further, monitor my body more, go to the doctor more frequently — and the more you search, the more you consider the possibilities<\/strong>,” said Thomas Fergus, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor’s College of Arts & Sciences. “If I see a site about traumatic brain injuries and have difficulties tolerating uncertainty, I might be more likely to worry that’s the cause of the bump on my head.”<\/p>\n His study is published in the journal\u00a0Cyberpsychology<\/em>,\u00a0Behavior and Social Networking.<\/em><\/p>\n As if fearing a catastrophic disease or injury isn’t bad enough, doubts about health — unfounded or not — can trigger worries about potential medical bills, disability and job loss<\/strong>, he said. And that can lead to even more Googling, obsessing, doctor visits, unnecessary medical testing and distress.<\/p>\n Prior research shows that approximately eight of 10 American adults seek medical information on the Internet.<\/p>\n Fergus sampled 512 healthy adults, with a mean age of 33.4 years. Fifty-five percent were women, 59 percent had at least a two-year degree, 53 percent worked at least 20 hours weekly, and 67 percent were unmarried.<\/p>\n He used several measures, among them a scale in which people assessed such statements as “I always want to know what the future has in store for me”<\/strong>; a health anxiety inventory, in which — regardless of their actual health — they responded to such statements as “I spend most of my time worrying about my health”; and a scale assessing how searches for online health information affected respondents’ anxiety.<\/p>\n While fearing the worst when it comes to health is not new, the online glut of medical information — some of it from questionable sources — may be more disturbing than that contained in medical manuals that people consult or obtain directly from a doctor<\/strong>, Fergus said.<\/p>\n “When you look at a medical book, you might not see all the possibilities at once, but online you’re presented with so many,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From the Baylor University media release: Turning to the Internet to find out what ails you is common, but for folks who have trouble handling uncertainty, “cyberchondria” — the online… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,10,319,351,340,338],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15695"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15695"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15695\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15716,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15695\/revisions\/15716"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Computer](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/ComputerUser.jpg\")
<\/a>Turning to the Internet to find out what ails you is common, but for folks who have trouble handling uncertainty, “cyberchondria” — the online counterpart to hypochondria — worsens as they seek answers<\/strong>, according to a Baylor University researcher.<\/p>\n