Department of Psychological Clinical Science, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Department of Psychology, University of Toronto Scarborough, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Clin Psychol Psychother. 2021 Nov;28(6):1379-1390. doi: 10.1002/cpp.2684. Epub 2021 Nov 13.
Cognitive-behavioural models of health anxiety propose a positive association between information seeking and health anxiety; however, it is unclear the extent to which cognitive mechanisms may mediate this relationship. Catastrophic cognitions are one type of cognition that may mediate this relationship, and the COVID-19 pandemic has presented an opportunity to examine these relationships within the context of a global health catastrophe. The current study investigated both cross-sectional (N = 797) and longitudinal (n = 395) relationships between information seeking, health anxiety and catastrophizing during the pandemic. Data were collected using Amazon Mechanical Turk during April and May 2020. Information seeking and health anxiety were positively associated both cross-sectionally and longitudinally (rs = .25-.29). Catastrophic cognitions significantly mediated the relationship between information seeking and health anxiety both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Developing effective methods of reducing information seeking and catastrophizing may serve to reduce health anxiety during global health crises such as the current pandemic.
健康焦虑的认知-行为模型提出，信息寻求与健康焦虑之间存在正相关关系；然而，认知机制在多大程度上可能调节这种关系尚不清楚。灾难化认知是可能调节这种关系的一种认知类型，而 COVID-19 大流行提供了一个机会，可以在全球健康灾难的背景下检验这些关系。本研究调查了信息寻求、健康焦虑和灾难化在大流行期间的横断面（N=797）和纵向（n=395）关系。数据是在 2020 年 4 月和 5 月使用亚马逊 Mechanical Turk 收集的。信息寻求和健康焦虑在横断面和纵向均呈正相关（rs=0.25-0.29）。灾难化认知在信息寻求和健康焦虑之间的关系中具有显著的中介作用，无论是在横断面还是纵向。开发有效的减少信息寻求和灾难化的方法可能有助于在全球健康危机（如当前的大流行）期间减少健康焦虑。
