Study Of The Internet Use And Health Anxiety In HIV Negative Test People

Objective：To investigate the health-related internet usage of HIV negativetest result people from HIV Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT) clinic.Compare their health anxiety, somatic symptoms and depression levels tothe outpatients and the community people. To explore the influential factorrelated to health anxiety of HIV negative result test people and try to findout the pathway to the health anxiety.Methods：1、 We conducted a questionnaire survey on620(157HIV-negative test result people，157outpatient，306communitypeople),aged15~60years old.2、 Questionnaires: We used Health-Related Internet Use Questionnairemeasure health related internet use level; Patient HealthQuestionnaire(PHQ-15) to assess the level of somatic symptoms, HealthAnxiety Questionnaire (HAQ) to evaluate the level of anxiety on health.The differences in the scores of the questionnaires among various groups ofthe subjects were determined using T-test、 Pearson correlation analysis、Two-way ANOVA and Path analysis was conducted by SPSS17.0andAMOS17.0.Results:[1] The health-related internet usage in the three groups are different, theproportion of the people who use Internet in community up to84.0%(257people); the proportion of the people who searching healthinformation on the Internet in the outpatient control group up to73.9%(116people); Use instant communication tools such as BBS, QQ groupcommunication about health information up to45.9%(45people) in theHIV negative group. [2] Somatic symptoms, health anxiety, depression score in the three groupshave significant difference (F=50.42, P <0.01, F=62.63, P <0.01, F=57.94, P <0.01); Further analysis found that the somatic symptomsscore of HIV negative testing group is significantly higher than thecommunity group (P <0.01), but have no significant difference with theoutpatient (P>0.05); The score of health anxiety and depression aresignificantly higher than community and outpatient groups.[3] Internet use have significant main effect for health anxiety F (2,377)=15.13, p <0.01, along with the increase of internet use frequency,healthy anxiety levels showed a trend of rising; Vulnerability also havesignificant main effect for health anxiety F (2,377)=8.34, p <0.01;The interaction of vulnerability and internet use have significant effecton health anxiety, indicate that the effect of internet use on differentvulnerability levels people is not the same. Individual with highervulnerability do the health related internet use frequently are moreprone to be anxiety, but for the low vulnerability people, the effect isnot obvious; the interaction of gender and internet use is significant.[4] Pearson correlation analysis shows: the score of somatic symptoms、health anxiety depression have a significant positive correlation withinternet use (p <0.01). The correlation coefficient of health anxiety,depression, somatic symptoms and the frequency of internet use are0.36,0.25,0.15, health anxiety have close relationship with Internetuse, in addition, also there is a strong correlation among the healthanxiety and depression, somatic symptoms, the correlation coefficientis0.66,0.54,0.64,respectively.[5] Multiple hierarchical regression analysis shows: among the basicsituations, gender plays a significant predict function in health anxiety,both group and vulnerability are significant predictors of healthanxiety, after put them in the second layer of equation they made a newcontribution, explanatory power increased by31%, and put the internetuse into the third layer of equation, explanatory power increased by5.1%.[6] Through path analysis, starting from the vulnerability to health anxiety and internet use the path coefficient was0.38and0.28, reached thesignificant level, from the vulnerability to somatic symptoms anddepression didn’t reach the significant level. From the health anxiety tothe somatic symptoms and depression the path coefficient were0.48and0.55respectively, and reached the significant level.[7] Conclusions：1. HIV negative testing group has a higher percentage of using internetinstant communication tools such as BBS, chat rooms, to communicateabout the information of health and disease than the control groups.2. The somatic symptoms of the HIV negative testing group are similar tothe outpatient. The health anxiety and depression level， compared withthe health clinics and community group, were significantly higher.3. The individuals with high vulnerability are more prone to health anxietywhen they search the health or disease information on web lbut theeffects of internet use on the individuals with low vulnerability are notobvious.4. Vulnerability factor is a main predictor of the health anxiety, however,health-related internet use play an important mediating effect. Theinternet use as a media factor triggers the inner vulnerability lead toanxiety.5. The reason of the “Negative AIDS” event is that with the effect of theinternet, the transmission and reinforcement of the HIV-related healthanxiety between the people who have high level of vulnerability.