ArticleDigital health
Exploring how health-related advertising interference contributes to the development of cyberchondria: A stressor-strain-outcome approach.
Article in Digital health. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed, 12 citations in OpenAlex.
- Trends in the Implementation of the Cyberchondria Severity Scale: Bibliometric Analysis.JMIR mental health · 2026Article
- Refugee-centered framework for design of digital health interventions: a qualitative study with Ukrainian refugee women in Norway.Frontiers in digital health · 2026Article
- Negative evaluation fear and sharing avoidance on WeChat Moments: exhaustion and face.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- The quality and reliability of short videos about myocardial infarction on TikTok: a cross-sectional study.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Online Health Information Seeking and Cyberchondria Among Men at Risk of HIV Infection: A Moderated Mediation Model.International journal of sexual health : official journal of the World Association for Sexual Health · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objectives: Cyberchondria is increasingly recognized as the dark side of digital health, given the pervasive use of the internet as a main source of health information in people's daily lives. While previous studies have identified many factors contributing to cyberchondria, there is a dearth of research on the impact of health-related advertisements. Therefore, this study adopts the stressor-strain-outcome (SSO) model to investigate how health-related advertising interference is directly and indirectly related to cyberchondria. Methods: To empirically validate the proposed research model, we conducted an online survey with 437 internet users with medical information seeking experience in China. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to analyze the survey data. Results: Our findings revealed a positive, direct association between health-related advertising interference and cyberchondria. Meanwhile, advertising interference was positively related to both information overload and information irrelevance, with the former further predicting cyberchondria. Moreover, doctor-patient communication weakened the positive effect of information overload on cyberchondria. Conclusions: The study not only theoretically contributes to the literature by theorizing the relationship between health-related advertising interference and cyberchondria but also practically underlines the pivotal role of effective doctor-patient communication in reducing the development of cyberchondria.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.