psychiatric disorders
Illness Anxiety Disorder
Symptoms and Signs of Illness Anxiety Disorder
Patients with illness anxiety disorder are so preoccupied with the idea that they are or might become ill that their illness anxiety impairs social and occupational functioning or causes significant distress. Patients may or may not have physical symptoms, but if they do, their concern is more about the possible implications of the symptoms than the symptoms themselves (eg, their stomach discomfort itself is less distressing to them than the possibility it might be cancer). Some patients examine themselves repeatedly (eg, looking at their throat in a mirror, checking their skin for lesions). They are easily alarmed by new somatic sensations. Some patients visit physicians frequently (care-seeking type); others rarely seek medical care (care-avoidant type). The course is often chronic—fluctuating in some, steady in others. Some patients recover. 