The term “cyberchondria” is formed by merging the word “hypochondria” – a mental disorder in which a person constantly searches for symptoms of diseases, and the prefix “cyber-“, which is used to create terms related to the Internet (for example, cyber addiction, cyberspace, etc.). Thus, cyberchondria refers to an obsessive state in which in which a person seeks to make a diagnosis based on information from the Internet. The author of the term “cyberchondria” is Brian Fallon, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University. Back in 1996, in the book “Phantom Illness: Recognizing, Understanding and Overcoming Hypochondria” (“Phantom diseases: recognizing, understanding and overcoming hypochondria”), he wrote that the advent of the Internet has changed the situation for the worse for hypochondriacs. In 1997, sociologist and literary critic from the United States, Elaine Showalter, in her book “Histories: hysterical epidemics and modern media” (“Histories: hysterical epidemics and modern Media”), called the Internet a place where “pathogenic ideas” spread, such as chronic fatigue syndrome.

In modern psychiatry, cyberchondria is not considered an independent disease; there is no such diagnosis in the international classification of diseases ICD-10. Cyberchondria is a variant of hypochondria, so when diagnosing it, doctors focus on the signs characteristic of this mental disorder.

• The main diagnostic criterion is the patient’s belief that he has no more than two somatic (that is, physical, not mental) disorders, and the duration of the anxiety state should be at least six months.
• Anxiety leads to real problems in the patient’s life, social maladaptation, difficulties at work, in family and personal life, and changes in the usual way of life. The patient does not listen to the opinion of doctors who say that he has no diseases, and is looking for new specialists who could confirm his concerns.
• Against the background of constant anxiety, increased levels of stress hormones, the patient may experience real disruptions in the body. The appearance of new sensations often convinces a person that his fears are real, thus forming a vicious circle.
• Hypochondria often occurs in people with increased anxiety and a tendency to depression.

Hypochondriacs are also characterized by the belief that no painful sensations should occur in a healthy person’s body, and their appearance is necessarily associated with the disease. They tend to constantly record their vital signs – to measure temperature, pressure, and pulse. The advent of the Internet with an abundance of medical websites and diagnostic algorithms has become fertile ground for a new round of hypochondria in society. According to Professor Brian Fallon, almost all modern hypochondriacs can be defined as “cyberchondriacs.” More and more people, suspecting the presence of symptoms of diseases, do not go to the doctor, but go online for information. Unfortunately, the features of the algorithms used by search engines to provide information only aggravate the situation and contribute to the rapid formation of dependence on information search. Therefore, additional signs are added to the traditional signs of hypochondria in the cybervariant of this disorder.:

• the constant use of Internet resources to search for information about symptoms and diseases,
• the commitment to passing diagnostic tests on medical websites, the search for new “effective” tests,
• the emergence of confidence in the presence of a disease after reading relevant information on the Internet,
• doubts about the competence of real doctors, refusal to visit medical institutions or frequent changes of attending physicians.

The first study on cyberchondria was conducted in 2008 by University of Washington scientists Ryan White and Eric Horowitz. They analyzed many medical websites, found out which symptoms and diseases people most often “Google”, what information and in what sequence search engines give out in response to these queries. It turned out that a person who searches the Internet for the causes of common conditions (for example, headaches) will first be shown not the most likely and common causes (for example, excess caffeine or vascular problems), but the most severe disorders (for example, brain cancer). Experts give another example in their work: if you enter a symptom such as “muscle twitching” into a search engine, then amyotrophic lateral sclerosis will be the first in the list of possible diseases suggested by the Internet. The probability that the problems are related to this disease is 1:55,000. At the same time, such common causes as lack of sleep, lack of magnesium, and excessive physical activity are often at the end of the list. Next, the scientists conducted a survey with the participation of over 500 people. The volunteers shared their understanding of the principles according to which, in their opinion, the results are ranked when certain symptoms are entered into the search engine. A significant part of the subjects believed that the most likely causes of symptoms were in the top lines (in the case of headaches, oncological brain lesions often top the list). White and Horowitz attribute this line of thought to the presence of so-called “biased judgments,” described by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman in the famous book Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. A type of such biased judgments that contribute to the development of cyberchondria is, for example, a distortion of accessibility. This is the principle that the easier a person remembers or imagines an event, the more likely it seems to occur. So, the more vividly a person imagines the suffering of a patient with brain cancer, the more likely they think they are to encounter this disease. Also, biased judgments that create the ground for the development of hypochondria and cyberchondria include people’s tendency to focus on events or information that confirm their existing beliefs. Scientists have found that for every fifth Internet user, visiting medical websites leads to increased anxiety about their health, which can gradually lead to the development of cyberchondria.

In order to help people get rid of health anxiety, experts from the New South Wales School of Psychology (Australia) have created an online service to help solve this problem. The principles of cognitive behavioral therapy were used in the development of the resource. After registration, participants are invited to take a series of online lessons with a frequency of once every five days. The lessons address both the psychological nuances of the formation of dependence on information retrieval, as well as the specifics of computer algorithms. For example, students will learn why searching for information about diseases leads to a temporary decrease in anxiety, followed by its exacerbation, and how Google search contributes not only to the exacerbation of existing fears, but also to the emergence of new ones. From classes on the technical aspects of cyberchondria formation, participants learn that websites in search results are ranked not by the occurrence of a disease, but by the number of search queries (that is, the more “cyberchondriacs” search for information about dangerous diseases, the more often it is shown in response to queries). The final module of the program helps participants become “experienced seekers” – they are taught to identify sites with reliable information and filter out unreliable sources, stop searching if they feel anxious, etc. The authors of the program tested it on a group of 41 people, all of whose participants suffered from cyberchondria. The control group included the same number of patients with hypochondria – psychologists worked with them offline. The results of the study showed that using the online program helped to reduce anxiety among the participants, they noted increased control over their actions, as well as improved physical well-being. Comparing the results obtained in the main and control groups, the organizers of the study noted: The online program proved to be more effective than real meetings with psychologists.

Access to a huge amount of information, including medical information, which people have acquired in the Internet age, requires the development of discipline and awareness. It is important to understand that not all the data presented on the world Wide Web is reliable, and the accuracy of diagnosis using algorithms cannot be compared with an examination by a doctor who sees the full picture, not individual fragments. It is necessary to understand exactly how search algorithms work, and take this into account when searching for information. It is also necessary to inform people about the symptoms of cyberchondria, so that at the first signs of anxiety, an obsessive desire to calm oneself by searching for new information, seek help from specialists. Photo: www.tambov.gov.ru