Generalized anxiety disorder, worries about illness, and hypochondriacal fears and beliefs.

Abstract

In order to compare hypochondriacal phenomena in patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and panic disorder (PD), and in order to examine the relationship between worries about illness on one hand, and disease fears/phobias and hypochondriacal beliefs on the other, the authors administered the Illness Attitudes Scales to patients with both GAD and PD, and determined the spheres of worry in patients with GAD. Patients with GAD were significantly less hypochondriacal than PD patients. A specific relationship between GAD and hypochondriasis was not found because worries about illness, which characterize some GAD patients, were largely independent from disease fears/phobias and hypochondriacal beliefs, which are a hallmark of hypochondriasis.