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Cyberchondria Severity Scale (CSS-15)3

Cyberchondria Severity Scale (CSS-15) Test

Understand how strongly health-related online searching is fueling anxiety in just 3 minutes. Get a clear severity snapshot to guide targeted support and track change over time.

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Questions: 153 minutes

08:30

October 2, 2025

October 2, 2025
Material has been updated

October 2, 2025
Material has been published

25,448 views

2,740 completions

2,350 likes

Verified by Daniel Hall

Psychologist with 25 years of experience

Scale Explorer

How the Scales are Structured

example score

10/15

Reassurance Seeking (RS)

Measures how strongly a person seeks reassurance from qualified professionals to reduce anxiety after online health searches.

Low

Moderate

High

3 – 6: Low | 7 – 11: Moderate | 12 – 15: High

A score of 10 falls in the Moderate range, suggesting a noticeable tendency to look for professional confirmation or refutation to feel calmer after searching health information online.

example score

5/15

Distrust of Physicians (DoP)

Assesses the degree to which a person tends to doubt or discount medical professionals’ opinions in favor of their own online health research.

Low distrust

Moderate distrust

High distrust

3 – 7: Low distrust | 8 – 11: Moderate distrust | 12 – 15: High distrust

A score of 5 falls in the Low distrust range, suggesting the person generally maintains trust in doctors even when they look up health information online.

example score

11/15

Excessiveness (E)

Measures how frequently and repetitively a person searches for health information online, including time spent and difficulty stopping.

Low

Moderate

High

3 – 7: Low | 8 – 11: Moderate | 12 – 15: High

A score of 11 falls in the Moderate range, suggesting fairly frequent repeated health-related searches that can take noticeable time and be hard to limit.

example score

10/15

Distress (D)

Measures the intensity of negative emotional reactions (e.g., anxiety, worry, tension) triggered by searching for health information online.

Low distress

Moderate distress

High distress

3 – 7: Low distress | 8 – 11: Moderate distress | 12 – 15: High distress

A score of 10 falls in the Moderate distress range, suggesting you often experience noticeable worry or tension when looking up health information online.

example score

11/15

Compulsiveness (C)

Measures how strongly a person experiences intrusive urges and difficulty controlling online searches for health information.

Low

Moderate

High

3 – 7: Low | 8 – 11: Moderate | 12 – 15: High

A score of 11 falls in the Moderate range, suggesting noticeable difficulty limiting health-related online searches that may sometimes intrude on daily activities.

example score

31/75

Cyberchondria Severity (CS)

Measures the overall severity of anxiety-driven online searching and interpretation of health information and its impact on reassurance and worry.

Low

Moderate

High

15 – 34: Low | 35 – 54: Moderate | 55 – 75: High

A score of 31 falls in the Low range, suggesting relatively infrequent or less disruptive health-related online searching and associated worry.

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DATA-BASED USER COHORTS

Who Usually Takes This Test?

Health Anxiety Searchers

41%OF USERS

People who repeatedly google symptoms and leave feeling more worried, seeking a clearer picture of how much it affects their mood and daily life.

Therapy and Clinic Clients

34%OF USERS

Patients in counseling or healthcare settings who want to assess whether online health research is escalating anxiety and complicating treatment decisions.

Digital Wellbeing Researchers

25%OF USERS

Students and researchers running surveys on how internet health information use relates to stress, anxiety, and coping behaviors.

BASED ON AGGREGATED, ANONYMIZED DATA FROM TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FREUDLY USERS.

Benchmarking

See How You Compare

Once you complete the test, your results are compared with real-world data from people in your country.
Below is a preview of how scores are typically distributed across each scale.

Overcautiousness (O)

Average

8.5

Normal range

6.3 — 10.7

min.

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This curve shows how scores are typically distributed.
Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

Distrust of doctors (Dod)

Average

Normal range

9.3 — 12.6

min.

max.

This curve shows how scores are typically distributed.
Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

Excessiveness (E)

Average

6.3

Normal range

4.9 — 7.8

min.

max.

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Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

Distress (D)

Average

9.6

Normal range

7.9 — 11.4

min.

max.

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Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

Obsession (O)

Average

9.9

Normal range

8.3 — 11.6

min.

max.

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Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

Severity of cyberchondria (Soc)

Average

47.9

Normal range

37.5 — 58.3

min.

max.

This curve shows how scores are typically distributed.
Once you complete the test, your result will appear on the scale so you can see how you compare.

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SAMPLE QUESTIONS

Example Questions From the Test

You are asked to read a series of statements and, for each one, select one of the response options provided that most accurately reflects the extent to which you agree with the statement.

- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Agree
- Strongly agree
- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Agree
- Strongly agree
- Strongly disagree
- Disagree
- Neither agree nor disagree
- Agree
- Strongly agree

These are 3 of the 15 real questions — the rest appear in the test. No sign-up needed to start.

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WHAT THE TEST MEASURES

About This Assessment

Cyberchondria Severity Scale (CSS-15) Test - Symptoms and Signs

hypochondria

cyberpsychology

health

The measure is designed to assess the severity of problematic health-related internet searching and associated distress. The Cyberchondria Severity Scale (CSS-15) is commonly used in clinical and research contexts to characterize the extent to which online symptom checking contributes to anxiety, preoccupation, and functional interference.

It consists of 15 items and typically takes about 3 minutes to complete. Items ask respondents to rate the frequency and impact of health information seeking online, including emotional reactions and difficulty disengaging from searches.

Developed by V. Starcevic and D. Berle, the Cyberchondria Severity Scale (CSS-15) is intended to support structured screening and to inform clinical discussion; results should be interpreted in conjunction with interview findings and other relevant assessment data.

Author: D. Berle, V. Starcevic

Literature: Starcevic, V., & Berle, D. Cyberchondria: Towards a better understanding of excessive health-related Internet use. Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics. 2013.; Taylor, S., & Asmundson, G. J. G. Treating health anxiety: A cognitive-behavioral approach. Guilford Press. 2004.; McElroy, E., & Shevlin, M. The development and initial validation of the cyberchondria severity scale (CSS). Journal of Anxiety Disorders. 2014.; McElroy, E., Shevlin, M., Kearney, M., Touhey, J., Evans, J., & Cooke, Y. The CSS-12: Development and validation of a short-form version of the cyberchondria severity scale. Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking. 2019.