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 news without verifying
its reliability. Our findings suggest that to mitigate the spread of
COVID-19 misinformation and cyberchondria, measures should be taken to
enhance a healthy scepticism of health news while simultaneously
guarding against information overload.