We are told there is a lot of health anxiety around, with reports that one in five outpatient appointments in the UK are taken up by 鈥溾�� people. Much of the blame is heaped on Doctor Google, alongside talk of wasted money.
So what鈥檚 going on? How concerned should we be about the apparent wave of the worried?
The comes from researchers behind a .
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Health anxiety 鈥� also known as illness anxiety disorder or hypochondriasis (a more stigmatising name) 鈥� is a medical diagnosis in its own right. Although it has , it remains understudied.
Earlier research puts the prevalence of health anxiety at between 3 and 13 per cent. But 10 to 20 per cent of 鈥渨ell鈥� individuals , even though this may not amount to a medically recognised problem.
Health anxiety can also have upsides. A small amount can actually be a force for good, if it signals impending danger and leads us to seek appropriate medical help rather than ignoring symptoms until they are too advanced.
Some studies have shown this effect in men, . Such concern can help men overcome reluctance to go to the doctor, often cited as an obstacle to improving health outcomes. A similar association has not been seen in women.
Level of worry
It is where someone sits on the health anxiety spectrum that remains crucial. As a GP in a large urban practice, I am seeing more people with mild health anxiety in recent times, often from internet use, but numbers of those with severe health anxiety seem unchanged.
All those with health anxiety can describe physical symptoms that are very real and can be frightening or multiple in nature, such as disabling headaches, difficulty in breathing or severe chest pain. In these situations, I would look to exclude serious conditions such as heart disease, cancers or progressive neurological conditions. I also see people who have had the full battery of tests to rule out these illnesses, but remain concerned and/or symptomatic, in a vicious cycle of chronic health anxiety and reassurance-seeking behaviour.
In severe cases, this can become very debilitating, to the point of functional impairment as the emotional distress becomes unbearable.
This can be compounded if care is fragmented, with people seeing multiple doctors in stand-alone consultations over many years. In these cases, doctors may see just pieces of the puzzle rather than the 鈥渨hole鈥�.
It is true that in its severe form, health anxiety can be entrenched and disabling, requiring referral for specialist talking therapies or similar. However, the vast majority of those with health anxieties can be helped in primary care to accept they are not physically ill. As the researchers behind the study that sparked today鈥檚 headlines make clear, just discussing the problem without a referral can make a big difference.
Yes, health anxiety is getting more prevalent, fuelled by internet use. But we shouldn鈥檛 worry about it too much.
Journal reference: Health Technology Assessment, DOI:
