Illness Anxiety Disorder
Article Sections
Introduction
Illness anxiety disorder is characterized by excessive and disproportionate worry about having or developing a serious, undiagnosed illness despite few or no somatic symptoms and negative diagnostic testing. Fears of being medically ill result in time-consuming health-related behaviors (eg, checking body for signs of illness) and high health care utilization, although some patients may avoid medical visits due to overwhelming anxiety of being diagnosed with a life-threatening condition.
Epidemiology and risk factors
The estimated prevalence rate of illness anxiety disorder is 0.1% in the general population. Age of onset is typically in early to middle adulthood, with similar prevalence rates in men and women.
Several factors may contribute to the risk for developing illness anxiety disorder and can include psychological (eg, childhood abuse or neglect, concurrent anxiety disorder) and environmental (eg, serious childhood illness, relative with chronic illness, death of an ill parent during childhood) factors.
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