What drives unverified information sharing and cyberchondria during the COVID-19 pandemic?

The World Health Organisation has emphasised that misinformation – spreading rapidly through social media – poses a serious threat to the COVID-19 response. Drawing from theories of health perception and cognitive load, we develop and test a research model hypothesising why people share unverified COVID-19 information through social media. Our findings suggest a person’s trust in online information and perceived information overload are strong predictors of unverified information sharing. Furthermore, these factors, along with a person’s perceived COVID-19 severity and vulnerability influence cyberchondria. Females were significantly more likely to suffer from cyberchondria, with males more likely to share…