Cyberchondria: improper use of the internet increases healthcare waste

Andrés Fontalba

The growth of the internet has made health information more accessible than ever. Increasingly more people are obtaining health information on the internet, which has probably become the most popular method of gaining knowledge in this field. The internet has brought great benefits and opportunities, such as offering instant answers about the nature, cause, prevention and treatment of any disease, as well as recommendations to maintain healthy habits, with more and more applications in the health field. We can connect to the internet with multiple devices (tablets, smartphones), in such a way that in Spain 93% of the population currently has an internet connection. However, people who are distressed or anxious about their health can access the internet for self-diagnosis and thus allegedly to calm down. This search for content on diseases aims to alleviate anxiety, but produces precisely the opposite phenomenon, increasing stress and worry. And this is even worse if the information obtained is inaccurate, incomplete and erroneous, as it often happens.

Cyberchondria is defined as the increase in anxiety or anguish associated with excessive and repeated online searches for health-related information, which means spending an excessive amount of time online at the expense of abandoning other more productive and necessary activities, and increased anxiety after searching. An exhaustive meta-analysis relates the anxiety that the person experiences for their health with the searches carried out on the internet on the subject, this association being much stronger in people who suffer from cyberchondria.

Experimental studies have already shown that the visualization of medical information on the internet can increase anxiety, worry and the risk of developing anxiety disorders. People especially sensitized after searching for symptoms and explanations about them may experience a slight relief of this anxiety in the short term, although in the long term the anxiety increases. This sequence turns the phenomenon into a vicious circle that reinforces this behaviour, intensify it, causes depression, functional impairment and abandonment of activities of daily life.

The growing concern about suffering from diseases, aggravated by this compulsive behaviour, logically leads to greater demand and increasing consumption of health resources, such as visits to multiple health professionals and requests for complementary tests and treatments that also do not relieve anxiety. The finding made by a study that relates excessive searches on the internet with greater use of health consultations concerning physical health and lower use of mental health services is interesting. These results could reflect both a low awareness about the genesis of the symptoms that the affected person presents and low confidence that the mental health professional can offer them more information than they can already obtain from the internet, which will require further research to clear up this question.

The current health systems, in our environment, face a growing demand for care, on the one hand, due to problems related to ageing and chronicity, and, on the other, due to the fear of getting sick in relatively healthy people. Often, the sources of information about the disease on the internet, rather than appeasing this fear, increase and magnify it. This leads to the search for diagnostic tests and treatments that are both unnecessary and dangerous. The identification and correct approach to this recent phenomenon will allow us to mitigate its devastating effects.