#Stressed: Covid-19, Chronic Illness and Technostress

Malini, Hema and Putri Lenggogeni, Devia and Windah, Andi and Qifti, Fauziah and K. Thapa, Deependra and West, Sanca and Cleary, Michelle (2021) #Stressed: Covid-19, Chronic Illness and Technostress. Mental Health Nursing. ISSN (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/imhn20

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Abstract

The use of online resources, particularly search engines and social media, for health-related information is on a steady upward trajectory. With its accessibility and ease of use, the Internet has founded a new era of information gathering and society has naturally gravitated towards the use of internet-based resources to find out more about all aspects of our own health (West et al., 2020). This has had rather unsurprising results for the way in which consumers engage with their health and with healthcare professionals, with many consumers armed and ready with some level of online-sourced health information prior to engaging with their local GP or specialist. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its sudden onset and widespread ramifications, gave many people yet another reason to pick up their smartphones and utilise online health resources to understand something that came to affect almost every person in one way or another, and became a pervasive part of our everyday lives. Indeed, with COVID-19 necessitating a reduced amount of travel and face to face contact with healthcare professionals, online platforms have become an essential way of accessing this information. However, research assessing knowledge and perceptions of COVID-19 among the general public indicates that participants have been prone to believe some misconceptions and falsehoods circulated particularly on social media (Geldsetzer, 2020). Ready access to a large amount of information about COVID-19 on social media coupled with its problematic use, including misinformation, has contributed to high levels of stress and cognitive symptoms called ‘technostress’. Brod (1984) originally defined ‘technostress’ as the inability to adapt to computer technology in a healthy way. Tarafdar et al. (2011) describe five technostress conditions: namely techno-overload, where users cannot determine whether the information is useful or not; techno-invasion, where technology users never feel free from technology; techno-complexity, where users experience feelings of incompetency and powerlessness from an inability to learn or deal with technology; techno-insecurity, marked by feelings of anxiety about using technology; and techno-uncertainty, where constant changes in technology cause stress to the user. While patients with health conditions require timely access to healthcare information, they often use information technology, including social media, to access such information. Subsequently, patients with chronic illnesses, who have a higher-than-average need for health information, may be exposed to information that is incomplete, conflicting, misleading, or inaccurate. This may place patients at increased risk of technostress. Couple this with an increased urgency in accessing online health information to stay abreast of COVID-19 information and there is an increased risk for technostress amongst an already vulnerable group, and scope for this technostress to tip over into the realm of physical and mental health impact. What needs to be understood is the extent to which technostress, exacerbated by COVID-19 information-seeking and coupled with chronic illness, manifests as a mental health challenge for those experiencing this. If the need for information draws those with a chronic illness further into the use of media platforms that can, in turn, trigger technostress, how can we identify and manage the potential mental health impacts of this illness-stress combination? Additionally, is this group more likely to experience technostress and ensuing physical and mental health impacts as a consequence of their chronic illnesses during the COVID-19 pandemic? With these questions in mind the authors undertook research into this area of crossover between chronic illness and technostress

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