Excessive Concern About Health: Causes And Treatment
Excessive concern about health is a long-term condition whose severity can vary over time. It is usually accentuated with age and in times of stress. It is an obsessive and irrational worry about suffering from some health problem in general. It can also be called hypochondria, which is characterized by the person’s marked imagination about the existence of physical problems. In addition to that concern, in some cases there are also misinterpretations of normal body sensations or symptoms that are interpreted as an illness or health problem.
Treatment focuses on regaining normal daily functioning. Normally, the treatment is usually psychotherapy, with the combined use of psychotropic drugs in cases where it is necessary. In this PsychologyFor article we will talk to you about excessive concern about health, its causes and treatment.
If our body shows signs that we may be sick, it is normal for us to worry. But excessive concern for health is characterized by a constant belief that you are suffering from characteristic symptoms of a serious illness. The person can become very incapacitated in their daily life due to excessive worry.
If you are worried about your health, the most reasonable thing is go to the doctor. When you have excessive worry about your health, you experience very high levels of stress due to real or imagined symptoms even after the medical results have come back negative and the doctor confirms that you are fine.
Illness anxiety disorder
This goes beyond a normal concern for health, since when it comes to a disorder, worry interferes with the person’s life:
Work or academic field
Functioning in daily life
Create and maintain meaningful relationships
Causes of excessive worry about health
Currently, we do not know the exact causes of excessive health concern (also known as hypochondria), but we do know factors that may be influencing it:
Have little knowledge of the body sensations, diseases or both. This may lead one to think that a serious illness is causing these bodily sensations. This leads the person to look for evidence to confirm that he has a disease.
Having a family member who is excessively concerned about their health and that of their family members.
Having had past experiences with serious illnesses. As a consequence, in adulthood the person experiences bodily sensations with fear.
The health related anxiety It usually occurs in early or middle adulthood and may worsen with age. For older people, health concerns may center on fear of developing memory problems.
Other risk factors for developing hypochondria are:
A stressful event or situation
Having suffered abuse in childhood
having had a illness in childhood or a parent with a serious illness
Have a personality that tends to worry
Excessive health checks queries on the internet
Treatments for hypochondria
Some of the treatment options for excessive health worry are:
Psychotherapy
The most common treatment for excessive health worry is psychotherapy, specifically cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT can be very effective in treating excessive health worry because it teaches the person skills that will help them manage the disorder. It can be done individually or in a group. Some of the benefits of CBT include:
Identify the concerns or beliefs health related
Learn other ways to interpret bodily sensations that replace inappropriate thoughts
Increase awareness of how worries affect self and others
Reply to the body sensations and the symptoms differently
Learn to deal with anxiety and stress in a more appropriate way
Stop avoiding situations and activities because of those body sensations
Avoid examining body signs repeatedly
Improve functioning in family, work and social relationships, in general
Other forms of psychotherapy can be used to treat this health concern, such as stress management and exposure therapy.
Medication
In some cases, the treatment of choice (psychotherapy) is not sufficient and the combined use of psychotropic drugs is required. The most common psychotropic drugs are antidepressants (for example, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors: SSRIs). It should be taken into account that the psychotropic drugs used in these cases have a series of side effects. It is important to review the possible most appropriate treatment options for each case.
This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to Excessive concern about health: causes and treatment we recommend that you enter our Clinical Psychology category.
