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Hypochondriacal Fears and Beliefs, Anxiety, and Somatisation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Robert Kellner ,
Juan Hernandez  and
Dorothy Pathak
Robert Kellner*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of New Mexico, 2400 Tucker NE, Albuquerque, NM 87131, USA
Juan Hernandez
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, University of New Mexico
Dorothy Pathak
Affiliation:
Department of Emergency and Community Medicine, School of Medicine, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
*
∗Correspondence
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Abstract

Four self-rating scales of hypochondriasis and the Symptom Checklist-90 were administered to 100 general practice (GP) patients and matched non-psychotic psychiatric out-patients. In a stepwise linear regression, self-rated somatic symptoms and anxiety predicted hypochondriacal fears and beliefs; self-rated depression did not appear as a predictor. There were differences between males and females and between psychiatric patients and GP patients in the associations of these constructs. These results varied in part with the scale of hypochondriasis used. Various scales of hypochondriasis appear to measure different features of the hypochondriasis syndrome. Fear of disease (disease phobia) was associated with anxiety, whereas a false belief of having a disease (disease conviction) was associated more with somatic symptoms.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 160 , Issue 4 , April 1992 , pp. 525 - 532
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1992 

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Footnotes

An earlier version of this paper was read at the International Congress of Behaviour Therapy in Edinburgh in September, 1988.

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