hypochondriasis

INTRODUCTION: Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) is effective for pathological health anxiety, but little is known about unwanted outcomes. AREAS COVERED: We investigated unwanted outcomes in the form of adverse events, overall symptom deterioration, and dropouts in CBT for pathological health anxiety based on a systematic review of 19 randomized controlled trials (PubMed, PsycInfo, and OATD; last updated 2 June 2023; pooled N  = 2188), and then a secondary original study of two randomized controlled trials (pooled N  = 336)...

BACKGROUND AND AIM: There is limited literature on the prevalence of mixed features in patients with depression, especially from countries in Asia. Our aim was to evaluate the prevalence of "mixed features" in patients with first-episode depression. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Patients with first-episode depression were evaluated for the presence of mixed features as per the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM)-5 criteria. They were additionally evaluated on Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS) and Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS)...

OBJECTIVES: To identify the set of symptoms most frequently co-occurring with hypochondriacal complaints in patients with neurotic or personality disorders. METHODS: Nonparametric Spearman rank correlations between the variables of symptom checklist "O" describing hypochondriacal symptoms and other symptoms were analyzed. To increase the reliability of the results, the analyses were performed independently in two groups: 3,929 patients before admission to a day hospital in the years 1980-2002 (group A) and 3,190 patients before admission in the years 2004-2015 (group B)...

Hypochondriasis is characterized by the fear or belief of suffering from a serious illness, based on the subject's misinterpretation of physical symptoms or manifestations of bodily functions. This concept has always been a topic of debate and controversy regarding its definition, nature and nosography, which is still ongoing today. Its complex management, including psychotherapeutic and pharmacological interventions, challenges the therapeutic relationship. We will discuss the definition of hypochondriasis and the new diagnosis covering this notion in the DSM-5 and in the scientific literature, the characteristics of this disorder, its differential diagnosis, its management, and considerations on its expression in the present time by evoking cybercondria and the Covid-19 pandemic...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the effect of changes in campus living conditions related to the Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on medical school students' mental health status, to explore the mediating role of emotion regulation strategies, and to provide effective suggestions for promoting medical school students' mental health. METHODS: A self-report questionnaire, an emotion regulation questionnaire (ERQ), and psychological questionnaires for emergent events of public health (PQEEPH) were used to interview 998 medical school students who experienced campus lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic...

BACKGROUND: Climacteric changes in women are associated with an increased probability of psychological symptoms. Identifying the relationship between adjustment to this period and mental health helps to plan for middle-aged women's health improvement. Therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the relationship between climacteric adjustment (CA) and mental health in middle aged women. METHOD: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 190 women aged 40 to 53 years...

OBJECTIVE: Clinical qualification of hypochondriasis or illness anxiety disorder (IAD) in Graves' disease (GD) and verification of associated personality and endocrinological factors. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A sample consisted of 27 patients (25 female and 2 male, mean age 48.4 years) with GD and personality disorders (PDs). The patients were examined clinically and with interviews for the assessment of PD according to DSM-IV (SCID-II-PD) and the Short Health Anxiety Inventory (SHAI)...

Health anxiety by proxy (HAP) is a newly introduced term in psychiatry to describe the anxious feelings or fear of having or acquiring a serious illness. It is often accompanied by maladaptive illness behavior in the absence of true somatic symptoms. This, in turn, entails seeking medical advice and therefore doing many unnecessary investigations in an attempt to justify these symptoms. Functional impairment may appear in HAP patients, and this indicates a pathological point. To some extent, it can be said that HAP is similar to health anxiety disorder in terms of symptomatology and items...

BACKGROUND: Anxiety about COVID-19 is common. For most people this is an appropriate response to the loss of livelihoods and loved-ones, disruptions to social networks, and uncertainty about the future. However, for others these anxieties relate to contracting the virus itself, a phenomenon termed COVID anxiety. Little is known about the characteristics of people with severe COVID anxiety or the impact it has on their daily lives. METHODS: We conducted a two-phase cross-sectional survey of people aged 18 or over who were living in United Kingdom, self-identified as anxious about COVID-19, and had a score of ≥9 on the Coronavirus Anxiety Scale...

BACKGROUND: Increased fear and anxiety among the general public following the emergence of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) can lead to hypochondriasis as well as indiscriminate use of drugs, versus the disease. OBJECTIVE: The present study was conducted to identify the frequency and causes of self-medication and hypochondriasis among students. METHODS: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted among 241 students of different disciplines of Khalkhal University of Medical Sciences in northwestern Iran over a period of six months...

OBJECTIVE: Anxious depression is associated with greater chronicity, higher severity of symptoms, more severe functional impairment, and poor response to drug treatment. However, evidence for first-choice antidepressants in patients with anxious depression is limited. This study aimed to compare the efficacy and safety of escitalopram, desvenlafaxine, and vortioxetine in the acute treatment of anxious depression. METHODS: Patients (n = 124) with major depressive disorder and high levels of anxiety were randomly assigned to an escitalopram treatment group (n = 42), desvenlafaxine treatment group (n = 40), or vortioxetine treatment group (n = 42) in a 6-week randomized rater-blinded head-to-head comparative trial...

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the validity and clinical utility of distinguishing between DSM-5 somatic symptom disorder (SSD) and illness anxiety disorder (IAD) in pathological health anxiety: the excessive and recurrent fear of, or preoccupation with, having or developing a serious health condition. METHODS: We compared SSD to IAD in pathological health anxiety (N = 334) with regard to concurrent, antecedent, and predictive validators. This was primarily a cross-sectional study, though we studied the effect of CBT longitudinally...

BACKGROUND: Severe health anxiety is a disorder characterized by a persistent preoccupation with one's health. In behavioral studies, biases in the processing of health-related stimuli (e.g., pictures, words) are consistently associated with health anxiety symptoms. The neural correlates of the observed behavioral abnormalities remain however poorly understood. METHODS: In this functional magnetic resonance imaging study, 22 treatment-seeking patients with severe health anxiety and 22 control participants performed a resting-state and a picture matching task...

INTRODUCTION: Despite being different medical conditions, functional somatic symptoms (FSSs) are common in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) and fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS). Higher levels of depression, anxiety, somatosensory amplification, hypochondriacal worry and alexithymia may be related to the severity of somatization in patients with MDD and FMS. We aimed to investigate the typology and severity of FSSs and the association between FSSs and these psychiatric symptoms in patients with MDD and FMS...

Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a mental illness currently classified as part of the "Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders" (OCRD) chapter in both the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition (DSM-5) and in the ICD-11. This is not the case for illness anxiety disorder/hypochondriasis (IAD/HC), as IAD is classified in the chapter "Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders" in DSM-5, and in ICD-11, under the name HC, it is classified along with BDD in the OCRD chapter.In this article, we aim to describe a case of comorbid BDD and IAD/HC in a young adult Portuguese man...

OBJECTIVE: No studies of thyroid-related hormone levels have been conducted in patients with hypochondriasis to date. The aim of this study is to examine thyroid-related hormones in patients with hypochondriasis. METHODS: Sixty patients with hypochondriasis and 138 healthy controls were included in this study. Patients with hypochondriasis who applied to the psychiatry outpatient clinic and met the study criteria and healthy controls were determined by chart analysis...

OBJECTIVE: Compare patients diagnosed as DSM-5 type II bipolar disorder (BD2) vs. major depressive disorder (MDD). METHODS: We compared characteristics of 3246 closely and repeatedly evaluated, consenting, adult patient-subjects (n = 706 BD2, 2540 MDD) at a specialty clinic using bivariate methods and multivariable modeling. RESULTS: Factors more associated with BD2 than MDD included: [a] descriptors (more familial psychiatric, mood and bipolar disorders and suicide; younger at onset, diagnosis and first-treatment; more education; more unemployment; fewer marriages and children; higher cyclothymic, hyperthymic and irritable temperament ratings, lower anxious); [b] morbidity (more hypomanic, mixed or panic first episodes; more co-occurring general medical diagnoses, more Cluster B personality disorder diagnoses and ADHD; more alcohol and drug abuse and smoking; shorter depressive episodes and interepisode periods; lower intake ratings of depression and anxiety, higher for hypomania; far more mood-switching with antidepressants; lower %-time depressed; DMI > MDI course-pattern in BD2; more suicide attempts and violent suicidal behavior); [c] item-scores with intake HDRS21 higher for suicidality, paranoia, anhedonia, guilt, and circadian variation; lower somatic anxiety, depressed mood, insight, hypochondriasis, agitation, and insomnia; and [d] treatment (more lithium, mood-stabilizing anticonvulsants and antipsychotics, less antidepressants and benzodiazepines)...

BACKGROUND: The 14-item Short Health Anxiety Inventory (SHAI-14) is a common measure of health anxiety but its screening properties have not been studied. The aims of this study were to evaluate the SHAI-14 as a screening instrument, identify cut-offs for clinically significant health anxiety and investigate which scores correspond to different severity levels. METHOD: The study included 1729 psychiatric patients and 85 healthy controls. Participants completed the SHAI-14 and underwent a diagnostic interview...

This study was aimed at exploring the possible roles of the cognitive attentional syndrome (CAS) and metacognitive beliefs in moderating the relationships between fear of coronavirus during the pandemic and health anxiety. Because some symptoms of health anxiety may overlap with symptoms of other anxiety disorders, we also tried to ascertain whether our hypothesized relations would be maintained when taking other anxiety disorder symptoms into account. We hypothesized that CAS strategies and meta-beliefs would play a role in the progression from fears of the coronavirus to coronavirus health anxiety...

OBJECTIVE: To explore the physical and mental health problems of front-line healthcare workers fighting COVID-19 across the three phases of the epidemic rescue mission (before, during and after) in China. DESIGN: A qualitative study was adopted using face to face, in-depth semistructured interviews. Phenomenological research methods and Colaizzi's seven-step analysis method were used in the study. SETTING: The setting of the study was the offices of healthcare workers in 12 tertiary hospitals...