Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2015 Jan;78(1):71-6.
doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2014.11.012. Epub 2014 Nov 15.

Somatic symptom burden and health anxiety in the population and their correlates

Sing Lee  1 , Francis H Creed  2 , Yee-Ling Ma  3 , Candi Mc Leung  4
Affiliations

Somatic symptom burden and health anxiety in the population and their correlates

Sing Lee et al. J Psychosom Res. 2015 Jan.

Abstract

Objective: Somatic symptom burden and health anxiety demonstrate overlapping clinical characteristics but their relationship in the general population is unclear. This study examined the association between these dimensions after adjustment for confounders and their respective correlation with outcome measures.

Methods: A randomly selected population-based sample of 3014 respondents aged 15-65 was interviewed by telephone using a structured questionnaire that included the 15-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-15), Whiteley-7, Kessler-6, Sheehan Disability Scale, socio-demographic variables and items regarding health care utilization. Respondents who scored 10 or above on PHQ-15 and 4 or above on Whiteley-5 were regarded as having high somatic symptom burden and high health anxiety respectively.

Results: Somatic symptom burden and health anxiety are moderately correlated after adjustment for confounders (p<.001). Both have important effects on psychological distress, functional impairment and health care utilization independent of each other (ps<.001). A considerable number of respondents (5.7%) reported both high somatic symptom burden and high health anxiety and this group showed the greatest general psychological distress, functional impairment and health care utilization.

Conclusion: This study demonstrates the close association of somatic symptom burden and health anxiety but also their independent association with psychological distress, functional impairment and health care utilization. The findings support the concept of the DSM-5 category of somatic symptom disorder, but also demonstrate that individuals with high somatic symptom burden or high health anxiety alone may merit separate diagnoses. More sophisticated studies of the relationship between somatic symptom burden and health anxiety are needed.

Keywords: Health anxiety; Health care utilization; Impairment; Psychological distress; Somatic symptom burden.

PubMed Disclaimer