{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,11]],"date-time":"2026-04-11T07:03:30Z","timestamp":1775891010684,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":58,"publisher":"Frontiers Media SA","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,2]],"date-time":"2023-05-02T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1682985600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["frontiersin.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Front. Psychol."],"abstract":"<jats:sec><jats:title>Background<\/jats:title><jats:p>Adolescents can benefit from engagement with health-related content on social media (e.g., viewing, commenting, or sharing content related to diseases, prevention, or healthy lifestyle). Nevertheless, such content may be distressing or exaggerated and present a challenge to mental well-being, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rumination about such content may lead to COVID-19 anxiety. Yet, the individual factors that would explain the association between health-related social media use (SMU) and COVID-19 anxiety are understudied.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Objective<\/jats:title><jats:p>In the current study, we aimed to fill the gap by investigating the association between health-related social media use (SMU) and COVID-19 anxiety in light of several individual factors: health anxiety, eHealth literacy, and mild and severe experience with COVID-19 infection. We (1) studied the relationship between individual factors and health-related SMU, (2) tested health anxiety as a moderator in the association between health-related SMU and COVID-19 anxiety, and (3) explored a direct effect of experience with COVID-19 on COVID-19 anxiety.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title><jats:p>Using structural equation modeling, we analyzed cross-sectional data from a representative sample of 2,500 Czech adolescents aged 11\u201316, 50% girls. Sociodemographic measures, health-related SMU, COVIDCOVID-19 anxiety, health anxiety, eHealth literacy, and mild and severe experience with COVID-19 infection were assessed with an anonymous online survey. The data were collected in June 2021.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Results<\/jats:title><jats:p>We conducted a path analysis to test the main relationships and an additional simple-slopes analysis to explore the moderating effect of health anxiety. Higher health anxiety and eHealth literacy were associated with increased health-related SMU. The effect of experience with COVID-19 infection on both COVID-19 anxiety and health-related SMU was negligible. Health-related SMU and COVID-19 anxiety were positively associated, however, only for adolescents high in health anxiety. For other adolescents, the two variables were unrelated.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec><jats:sec><jats:title>Conclusion<\/jats:title><jats:p>Our findings show that adolescents with higher health anxiety and eHealth literacy engage in health-related SMU more intensively. Furthermore, for adolescents high in health anxiety, the frequency of health-related SMU is associated with the risk of COVID-19 anxiety. This is likely due to differences in media use. Adolescents with high health anxiety may use social media for content that is more likely to lead to COVID-19 anxiety compared to other adolescents. We recommend focusing on the identification of such content, which may lead to more precise recommendations regarding health-related SMU compared to cut-back on the frequency of overall SMU.<\/jats:p><\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.3389\/fpsyg.2023.1079730","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,2]],"date-time":"2023-05-02T15:45:25Z","timestamp":1683042325000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3389\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":12,"title":["Health-related social media use and COVID-19 anxiety in adolescence: health anxiety as covariate and moderator"],"prefix":"10.3389","volume":"14","author":[{"given":"Adela","family":"Lokajova","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"David","family":"Smahel","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Nikol","family":"Kvardova","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"1965","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,5,2]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"4750","DOI":"10.1007\/S12144-020-01229-7\/TABLES\/3","article-title":"Adolescents\u2019 and parents\u2019 anxiety during COVID-19: is there a role of cyberchondriasis and emotion regulation through the internet?","volume":"40","author":"Akg\u00fcl","year":"2021","journal-title":"Curr. 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