Olga Lainidi summarises a paper from the UK COVID-19-MH study, which explores the links between COVID-19 information-seeking behaviours during the pandemic, and depression, anxiety and loneliness.
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Francesca Bentivegna explores a timely RCT concluding that delivering internet-based (email) CBT for health anxiety is non-inferior to face to face CBT in the short-term. The study also concludes that iCBT is more cost-effective.
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Suzanne Dash considers the findings of a recent RCT of exposure-based cognitive-behavioural therapy via the internet and as bibliotherapy for somatic symptom disorder and illness anxiety disorder.
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Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) is substantially more effective than standard care at reducing symptoms of health anxiety in medical patients, and can be delivered by non-specialist staff with minimal training at little extra cost, according to an RCT published by The Lancet today. The CHAMP (Cognitive behaviour therapy for Health Anxiety in Medical Patients) trial [read the full story…]
Hypochondria is an ancient word. It stems from the Greek meaning for the upper abdomen; hypo- is the prefix for below, and -chondro refers to the ribs, so that the Greeks referred imaginatively to the upper abdomen as ‘the bit below the ribs.’ For the Greeks, the abdomen was felt to be the seat of [read the full story…]
Most of us care about our health (something we elves encourage) but for up to 5% of people, worrying about health has become a significant problem in itself. Severe health anxiety, or hypochondriasis, is said to exist when someone holds a strong fear of having a serious disease, despite all medical assurances to the contrary. [read the full story…]
