Handbook of Research on Cyberchondria, Health Literacy, and the Role of Media in Society’s Perception of Medical Information
Autor: Aker, Hacer , Aiken, Mary
Número de Páginas: 468Cyberchondria is characterized by a pattern of excessive health-based search behaviors that are likely to increase health anxiety or distress, heightened by ever-increasing access to and normalization of technology use and the internet specifically. The internet can be a source of valuable medical information and is an efficient vehicle for awareness-raising and dissemination; however, it can increase anxiety in audiences without medical knowledge or training and can pose a challenge to the traditional gatekeepers of medical knowledge and expertise. Technological advances are accelerating rapidly; however, concomitant to this acceleration, an epidemic of online mis- and dis-information that has the capacity to negatively impact general health, health literacy, and health behaviors globally now exists. The World Health Organization (WHO) has described this information overload as an infodemic. The Handbook of Research on Cyberchondria, Health Literacy, and the Role of Media in Society’s Perception of Medical Information covers a wide range of topics from the characteristics and prevalence of cyberchondria to the pandemic policy response and cybersecurity issues relating to...
