Latent profiles of cyberchondria among nursing interns: the differential mediating role of health anxiety in the relationship between work stress and profile membership

作者：Yuan Jz, Xiangrong Wang, Yong Fang, Huijuan He, Mengying Li, Na Zhang · 发表于：Frontiers in Public Health · 年份：2026 · DOI：10.3389/fpubh.2026.1899742 · 研究领域：Psychosomatic Disorders and Their Treatments、Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout、Nursing education and management

Background In the digital health era, the internet has become a primary channel for the public to access health information. However, fragmented and non-professional online content can easily foster cyberchondria. Nursing interns—being a transitional group with foundational medical knowledge yet facing significant clinical practice stress—are particularly vulnerable to cyberchondria. Nevertheless, existing studies have predominantly focused on general university students, with limited in-depth examination of the heterogeneous manifestations of cyberchondria among nursing interns. Therefore, this study aims to identify latent classes of cyberchondria among nursing interns and to examine the associations of work stress with profile membership and the indirect associational pathways of health anxiety consistent with hypothesized mediation pathways. Methods A convenience sampling method was used to recruit 538 nursing interns from 14 tertiary Grade-A hospitals in Hubei Province between September and November 2025. To collect relevant data, participants completed a general information questionnaire, the Chinese version of the Short Cyberchondria Scale, the Short Health Anxiety Inventory, and the Nursing Internship Stress Scale. Subsequently, latent profile analysis was employed to identify latent classes of cyberchondria among the nursing interns. Results Cyberchondria among nursing interns could be classified into four latent classes: the low cyberchondria-apathetic type (8.7%), ...