Cognitive representation of obsessive-compulsive disorder and Internet

Mitrović, Dora. (2016). Cognitive representation of obsessive-compulsive disorder and Internet. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology. [mentor Jokić-Begić, Nataša].

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Abstract

The information we are exposed to changes our perception. Internet, as the largest source of information today and also easily available, can affect the perception of the disease. The way people perceive the threat of disease or illness itself, occupies the central part of Leventhal's self-regulatory model. This model was developed in order to explain variations in the behavior associated with the disease (Leventhal, Diefenbach and Leventhal, 1992). The aim of the research was to explore the connection between Internet usage and cognitive representation of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) which is based on Leventhal's model. Model was applied togroup of people who have obsessive-compulsive disorder. We examined the items of Leventhal's model (perception of the effects of the illness and duration, perceived personal control of the disease and perception of efficacy of treatment, the identity of the disease, care and emotions associated with the disease and understanding of their illness) and the help seeking behavior (past and future behavior) of people who suffer from OCD and who are online support groups participants at the same time. While the perception of the disease is rather pessimistic, 30.6% of participants did not seek for help. Among participants who alreadyaddressed someone for help, 33.9% of them felt that the expert rather helped them, on the other hand 20.9% also believed that seeking help on the internet was very useful. Among participants who did not seek for help yet, 66.1% would consider seeking for help from professional, while 51.6% of them highly agreed with searching help online in the future (forums, social networks ...). We also examined the association between severity of symptoms, cognitive representations of disease and the usage of various information sources about OCD. More pronounced symptoms were associated with more pessimistic perception of the disease and more frequent use of different sources of information which include relevant sources of information, such as experts, the official website about health, academic articles and online journal articles, but also irrelevant sources such as online forums, online support groups, blogs, Twitter, articles with news and social networks.

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