Illness Anxiety Disorder: Psychopathology, Epidemiology, Clinical Characteristics, and Treatment.

Illness anxiety disorder is a primary disorder of anxiety about having or developing a serious illness. The core feature is the cycle of worry and reassurance seeking regarding health, as opposed to a focus on relief of distress caused by somatic symptoms (as in Somatic Symptom Disorder). Clinically significant health anxiety is common, with estimates ranging up to 13% in the general adult population. There are evidence-based treatments, including psychopharmacology and cognitive behavioral therapy, that can significantly alleviate symptoms. An understanding of the core psychopathology and clinical features of illness anxiety disorder is essential to fostering a working alliance with patients with health anxiety, as is the maintenance of an empathic, curious, and nonjudgmental stance toward their anxiety. Collaboration between medical providers is essential to avoid the pitfalls of excess testing and medical treatment.

• Publication year

  2019

• Venue

  Psychosomatic Medicine

• Publication date

  2019-04-27

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1097/PSY.0000000000000691PMID 30920464
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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