Modern Russian health psychology does not have the necessary tools for studying health anxiety in children, and therefore it is necessary to identify methods aimed at assessing the presence/absence and severity of children’s health anxiety.

To validate the “Short Health Anxiety Inventory” to a sample of school-age children who do not have serious physical disabilities.

The sample: 193 respondents (average age-12.5; 117-girls). We used: “Short Health Anxiety Inventory” (SHAI; Salkovskis et al., 2002), Children CPQ (Factor C), “Attitude toward Health” questionnaire (Berezovskaya, 2005) (emotional scale), STAI (Spielberger, 2002), EPI (Eysenck, 1963) (neuroticism scale).

Correlation analysis suggests that “health anxiety” is a separate construct. The discriminativeness criterion shows that each individual statement, as well as the whole inventory, is aimed at measuring the same construct. The retest reliability assessment (4 weeks later) shows the results: the “Health Anxiety” scale - 0.892 (p≤0.01), the “Alertness to bodily sensations” scale - 0.889 (p≤0.01), the “Fear of negative consequences” scale - 0.815 (p≤0.01). Correlations between the scales shows the values: 0.943 (p≤0.01) - for the general scale, 0.392 (p≤0.01) - for the “Alertness to bodily sensations” scale, 0.675 (p≤0.01) - for the “Fear of negative consequences” scale. The original three-component structure of the questionnaire is confirmed. The Russian version of the inventory showed internal consistency (alfa-Cronbach’s coefficient - 0.835), retest reliability, discriminativeness, external and constructive validity.

The results indicate that the SHAI can be used to study health anxiety in children due to its psychometric characteristics, simplicity and ease of use.

In modern health psychology there is a question of separating the concepts of “personal anxiety” and “health anxiety” and defining the interaction features and mutual influence between these concepts.

To study the interaction between personal anxiety and health anxiety in children, taking into account the parents’ influence and depending on the child’s personal illness experience.

The sample: 145 respondents (46 frequently ill children (mean age 16.3±0.3), 41 rarely ill children (mean age 16.1±0.1), 28 parents of frequently ill children (mean age 44.9±0.8), 30 parents of rarely ill children (mean age 44.5±1.5)). We used: “Short Health Anxiety Inventory” (SHAI; Salkovskis et al., 2002), STAI (Spielberger, 2002).

We find significant differences in the personal anxiety indicator (1.386, p≤0.01), which is higher in frequently ill children (moderate level of severity). Parents of frequently ill children have the same level of personal anxiety (no statistically significant differences) (12.825, p>0.05). For groups of rarely ill children and their parents we find significant differences (2.382, p≤0.01), and the level of personal anxiety is higher in children. The indicator of health anxiety in frequently and rarely ill children has no significant differences (9.265, p>0.05). The same is typical for rarely ill children and their parents while in the groups of frequently ill children and their parents this indicator has significant differences and is higher in parents (9.136, p ≤0.01).

The results show that health anxiety is an independent construct, the consideration of which should begin with non-clinical, normative forms of manifestation in both adults and children.