PLoS ONE (Jan 2020)

Health anxiety and illness-related fears across diverse chronic illnesses: A systematic review on conceptualization, measurement, prevalence, course, and correlates.

  • Sophie Lebel,
  • Brittany Mutsaers,
  • Christina Tomei,
  • Caroline Séguin Leclair,
  • Georden Jones,
  • Danielle Petricone-Westwood,
  • Nicole Rutkowski,
  • Viviane Ta,
  • Geneviève Trudel,
  • Simone Zofia Laflamme,
  • Andrée-Anne Lavigne,
  • Andreas Dinkel

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0234124
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 15, no. 7
p. e0234124

Abstract

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BackgroundPatients with chronic diseases commonly report fears of illness or symptoms recurring or worsening. These fears have been addressed from an illness-specific perspective (e.g., fear of cancer recurrence), a generic illness perspective (e.g., fear of progression), and a psychiatric perspective (DSM-5 illness anxiety disorder and somatic symptom disorder). The broader concept of health anxiety (HA) can also be applied to patients with a chronic disease. This review was conducted to investigate the conceptual, theoretical, measurement-overlap, and differences between these distinct perspectives. We also aimed to summarize prevalence, course, and correlates of these fears in different chronic illnesses.MethodsWe used PsycINFO, PubMED, CINAHL, Web of Science, SCOPUS, and PSYNDEX to conduct a systematic review of studies pertaining to these fears in chronic illness published from January 1996 to October 2017. A total of 401 articles were retained.ResultsThere were commonalities across different conceptualizations and diseases: a high prevalence of clinical levels of fears (>20%), a stable course over time, and a deleterious impact on quality of life. Reviewed studies used definitions, models, and measures that were illness-specific, with only a minority employing a psychiatric perspective, limiting cross-disease generalizability. There appears to be some applicability of DSM-5 disorders to the experience of fear of illness/symptoms in patients with a chronic illness. While conceptualizing HA on a continuum ranging from mild and transient to severe may be appropriate, there is a lack of agreement about when the level of fear becomes 'excessive.' The definitions, models, and measures of HA across chronic illnesses involve affective, cognitive, behavioral, and perceptual features.ConclusionsThe concept of HA may offer a unifying conceptual perspective on the fears of illness/symptoms worsening or returning commonly experienced by those with chronic disease.