Psychometric Properties of the Short Form of Cyberchondria Questionnaire

In today's world, the Internet has become a very important and vital part of our lives. One of the harmful effects of excessive use of the Internet in relation to health is cyberchondria. This related to an increase in the level of anxiety or health distress, and in other words, it is a type of anxiety that leads to searching for health-related information online, and this causes an increase in the level of anxiety, worry and unnecessary expenses. The aim of this study was to investigate the Psychometric properties of the short form of Cyberchondria questionnaire.

The present study applied in terms of purpose and its method is descriptive and psychometric studies. The statistical population of the present study was students of public and private universities in Isfahan in 1398. For the present study, 566 students (344 females and 223 males) from Isfahan University students selected by stratified random sampling method using virtual self-examination questionnaires (McElroy and Shevlin, 2014) and health anxiety questionnaire. (Salkovskis and Warwick, 2002) responded. Research data analyzed using SPSS 23 and AMOS 22 software.

The findings showed that in the virtual Cyberchondria questionnaire measurement model, all factor loads including compulsion (0.714), distress (0.878), excessiveness (0.805), and reassurance (0.921) were significant. (P <0.001). In addition, the CVI coefficient for all items of the Cyberchondria questionnaire was higher than 0.9 and the intra-class correlation coefficient of the questionnaire resulting from its two implementation was equal to 0.971, which is at a safe distance and is higher than the acceptable value. The reliability obtained using Cronbach's alpha and halving coefficient for the whole questionnaire and all four dimensions is higher than 0.7. The findings also showed that there was a positive and significant relationship between Cyberchondria questionnaire and health anxiety (P <0.001) and the correlation coefficient of the two questionnaires was 0.782.

Health-related internet use, in the context of health anxiety is best conceptualized as health-related safety behavior maintained through intermittent reinforcement. In general, according to the results of validity and reliability, the virtual autopsy questionnaire can used in psychological research. Also, these results support the psychometric characteristics and validity of the virtual self-diagnosis questionnaire among the non-clinical sample, and it can be said that this questionnaire is approved in the Iranian sample and has psychometric characteristics and practical tools for diagnosis. It can also used in a short period of time due to the short length of the too