Narrative Clinical Review. This page provides the verified citation, abstract, and full-text PDF for the journal article.
Clinical boundary: Health anxiety can coexist with medical illness. Credible new symptoms or risk require proportionate medical assessment; this page cannot determine whether testing or treatment is appropriate for an individual.
Publication Details
- Author: Christian Jonathan Haverkampf
- Journal: The Journal of Psychiatry Psychotherapy and Communication
- Publication date: 2024-12-31
- Volume, issue, pages: 13(4), 101–110
- Article type: Narrative Clinical Review
Recommended citation: Haverkampf, C. J. (2024). Health Anxiety: Epidemiology, Symptoms, Diagnosis, and Treatment. The Journal of Psychiatry Psychotherapy and Communication, 13(4), 101–110.
Abstract
Health anxiety ranges from understandable concern about bodily change to persistent fear of serious illness that consumes attention, prompts repeated checking or reassurance, and restricts life. It may occur with or without diagnosed medical disease, so good care cannot be organized around a false choice between physical and psychological explanations. This narrative clinical review examines epidemiology, symptom patterns, diagnosis and differential diagnosis, communication, cognitive-behavioral formulation, treatment evidence, digital health searching, service use, relapse prevention, and safety. Evidence available through 30 November 2024 supports cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), including therapist-guided internet delivery, as the best-established psychological treatment. Antidepressant medication has some trial support, although comparative and long-term evidence is less developed. The review argues that proportionate medical assessment and psychological treatment are complementary: clinicians should investigate credible new risk, explain what has and has not been excluded, and avoid both reflexive testing and premature psychologizing. Reassurance is most useful when it becomes a shared plan for responding to uncertainty rather than a short-lived promise of safety. A formulation linking threat meaning, selective attention, bodily arousal, checking, avoidance, and interpersonal reassurance can identify testable intervention targets. Therapeutic communication is therefore not an adjunct to treatment; it can either stabilize continuity and reflective choice or inadvertently reinforce the cycle of alarm.
Keywords
health anxiety; illness anxiety disorder; hypochondriasis; somatic symptom disorder; cognitive behavioral therapy; clinical communication
Full Text
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Health Information and Safety
This journal article is educational and research-oriented. It is not a personal diagnosis, treatment plan, medication instruction, crisis service, or substitute for assessment by a suitably qualified clinician who knows the person’s circumstances.
Do not start, stop, or change medication or another treatment solely because of information on this page. New, severe, persistent, or worsening symptoms, or uncertainty about risk, require individual professional assessment.
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Website copy first made available on 26 August 2026. The journal citation retains the article’s issue date.