The Cyberchondria Severity Scale-Short Form: A Psychometric Study

Background/Aims: This study was conducted to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Cyberchondria Severity Scale-Short Form. Methods: This was a methodological-type study. Voluntary adult individuals, registered to three different family-health-centers located in Ankara were included in the study (n=322). The data were collected online in July 14-August 8, 2021, via a questionnaire, the Cyberchondria Severity Scale-Short-Form (CSS-12-TR) and the Health Seeking Behavior Scale (HSBS). The data were analyzed via the IBM-SPSS 25.0 and IBM-AMOS 24.0. The language, content and construct validities and the internal consistency reliability tests were used to analyze the data. The Davis method was used to assess the content validity. Results: The mean age was 31.95±12.45 (min. 18-max. 65). The content validity index of the scale was 0.93. The CSS-12-TR and the HSBS was found to be moderately correlated (r=0.485, p<0.000). The model-fit indexes were mostly in perfect agreement. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of the total scale was 0.884, and between 0.751-0.822 for the sub-dimensions. The variance between the test-retest measurements was statistically insignificant (t=0.447, p=0.658) and correlated (r=0.759, p<0.001). The intraclass correlation coefficient was 0.936 (F=15.699, p<0.000). Conclusion: The CSS-12-TR with 12 items and four sub-dimensions was found to be an easy to implement, valid and reliable instrument for Turkish community-dwelling adult population. Since the cyberchondria can potentially be a problematic issue for all adult groups, its psychometric structure is recommended to be re-conducted with the Turkish older adult population.