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Hypochondriasis and Somatosensory Amplification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Arthur J. Barsky  and
Grace Wyshak
Arthur J. Barsky*
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, and Psychiatry Service and Primary Care Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, ACC 807, Fruit Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA
Grace Wyshak
Affiliation:
Department of Medicine, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Center for Population Studies, Harvard School of Public Health, 9 Bow Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
*
∗Correspondence
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A self-report questionnaire completed by 177 out-patients showed that hypochondriasis and amplification had a zero-order correlation of 0.56, and in stepwise multiple regression amplification accounted for 31 % of the variance in hypochondriasis, after sociodemographic variables had been accounted for. Fears of ageing and death, and a childhood history of illness in the family, increased the R2 to 0.50. Amplification was more powerful in women than in men and was also a significant (although weaker) correlate of somatisation, explaining 12% of the variance. Somatisation also correlated with being female, the propensity to seek medical care, and a diminished sense of efficacy over one's health. Our findings are consistent with the possibility that somatosensory amplification occurs in hypochondriasis.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 157 , Issue 3 , September 1990 , pp. 404 - 409
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1990 

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