Haunted online: Exploring the mental health impact of cyberstalking and barriers to healthcare

Cyberstalking is a landscape which is fast emerging and is a form of technology facilitated abuse. The lasting mental health consequences are often underestimated, yet despite growing recognition of its psychological toll, cyberstalking often remains under-researched the public health domain. The purpose of this study was to explore literature focused on the experiences of adults subjected to online stalking, with a focus on the mental health outcomes and the barriers encountered when seeking support and healthcare. A literature review was carried out to identify the landscape of existing research, focused on understanding the experience of Adults subjected to cyberstalking, and included both qualitative and quantitative sources. Results identified anxiety, depression, hyper vigilance, and post-traumatic stress symptoms as common psychological health outcomes. Barriers to accessing mental health services include stigma, disbelief, and digital literacies that limit recognition and reporting of abuse. This study highlights these experiences applying not only a Public Health perspective but examining a broader sociopolitical context, where gendered power dynamics and digital surveillance align to structural inequalities in healthcare provision. The findings advocate for digitally literate healthcare approaches that acknowledge the complexity of online harms. This study recommends enhanced practitioner training, calling for policy reform to bridge the gap between lived experience and institutional response highlighting the need to legitimise cyberstalking as a serious public health issue deserving of both academic and policy attention. The oral presentation will demonstrate how these results can be integrated into community health development practice and the steps that can be taken to build empirically on this knowledge, Key messages • Access to healthcare is obstructed by stigma, disbelief, and digital illiteracies, limiting the recognition, reporting, and treatment of cyberstalking related harm. • Structural inequalities, rooted in gendered power dynamics and digital surveillance, shape how individuals experience cyberstalking and how healthcare systems respond.