Current Psychiatry Reviews - Volume 10, Issue 1, 2014

The DSM-5 revision of the health anxiety classification (i.e., hypochondriasis) highlights deficiencies in the present DSM taxonomy and the need to consider an alternative. Health anxiety is a clinical syndrome that has been and remains difficult to classify in the DSM system. We argue that the current DSM-5 proposal that splits this syndrome between two diagnoses, somatic symptom disorder (SSD) and illness anxiety disorder ( Read More

This review addresses the prevalence of hypochondriasis and less restrictive subtypes of hypochondriacal phenomena (abridged hypochondriasis and health anxiety). Altogether, 55 papers based on 47 independent samples reporting prevalence rates of hypochondriasis, abridged hypochondriasis, and health anxiety were taken into account. Investigations of the general population, general medical samples (e.g., pr Read More

Hypochondriasis has common features with a number of other mental disorders, its boundaries are not always easy to draw and it occurs frequently with several psychiatric conditions. This review examines the relationships between hypochondriasis and other psychopathology in two ways. First, it discusses the differential diagnosis of hypochondriasis by identifying both the similarities and differences between hypocho Read More

Hypochondriasis (HC) has presented physicians and researchers with nosological challenges since Freud’s era. Part of the difficulty lays in the significant overlap between the constructs of mental illness and personality disorders that already exists when it comes to understanding almost any psychological phenomena (i.e., state versus trait debate). Indeed, many of the symptoms of HC are similar to those of other mental Read More

The present paper reviewed studies that examined the role of cognitive and perceptual variables in health anxiety and hypochondriasis that have been published since a 2007 meta-analysis of this literature. Specifically the current review examined the associations between hypochondriasis or health anxiety and (1) dysfunctional beliefs, (2) cognitive processes, (3) triggering stimuli, and (4) the perception of bodily sensations. Ov Read More

Background: The hypochondriacal spectrum includes several clinical phenomena, such as disease phobia, thanatophobia and health anxiety. The major challenge for a dimensional tool is to capture the different features which sensitively differentiate the hypochondriacal syndrome from other clinical phenomena, such as somatization. This article provides a qualitative review of the instruments designed for the dimensional asse Read More

This paper presents a narrative review of psychological treatments for hypochondriasis and health anxiety. An extensive literature search encompassing publications in the English language yields over 40 case reports and systematic studies on mainly cognitive and behavioral interventions. After a brief introduction of the types of intervention, a summary of recent studies is given, and their methodological and Read More

Despite the high prevalence of hypochondriasis in primary care settings, there are relatively few pharmacotherapy trials in hypochondriasis. Ongoing controversy about nosology of hypochondriasis and lack of work demonstrating specific neurobiological alterations in hypochondriasis may contribute to this. There have been several open label trials of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-2A antagonis Read More

Research suggests that a history of childhood anxiety correlates with and predicts adolescent depression. The present review synthesizes current knowledge of relations between childhood anxiety and adolescent depression, focusing on the possibility that primary anxiety in childhood may cause secondary depression in adolescents. Across existing studies, evidence strongly supports childhood anxiety as a risk factor for ado Read More