Personality Traits of Future Nurses and Cyberchondria: Findings from an Emerging Economy

Abstract

The Internet is intricately embedded in our everyday lives and has become a valuable source of information to support learning due to its accessibility and decreasing costs. However, the rising costs of healthcare resulted in students seeking medical information from online health websites contributing unnecessary stress to their academic lives. In developing economies, however, the overloaded information from the Internet brings forth severe risks to these individuals by exposing themselves to inaccurate and inappropriate information in addressing their perceived conditions and symptoms. Cyberchondria is the speculative escalation of anxieties about common health issues which is grounded on the assessment of online information to satisfy medical curiosity. The personality traits of nursing students in higher education are utilized to identify which among these traits can lead to cyberchondria by examining 207 responses through a structural equation model technique. Analysis of data reveals that the individual personality traits of conscientiousness and neuroticism are positively associated with cyberchondria. Practical and academic implications are discussed in relation to the role of technology in nursing education.