Advances in understanding illness anxiety

Abstract

Illness anxiety, also known in its more severe form as hypochondriasis, is a debilitating and chronic condition in which normal bodily symptoms are misinterpreted as signs of serious medical illness. Patients suffer with the fear that they are ill despite reassurance to the contrary and often overuse medical services in the process. This article critically evaluates the recent literature on illness anxiety and related, medically unexplained symptoms, highlighting new and interesting findings in the areas of prevalence, classification/diagnosis, management, and evidence-based treatment and new frontiers in understanding illness anxiety, such as brain imaging, neuroimmunology, and cyberchondria.