title: Investigation of health anxiety and its related factors in nursing students.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To explore health anxiety in a sample of nursing students to determine the relationships between health anxiety and life satisfaction, personality, and alexithymia.
  
  
  METHODS
  Two thousand and eighty-six nursing students in junior college, which were divided into five groups, were evaluated by questionnaires, including the Life Satisfaction Scales Applicable to College Students, the Chinese version of the Short Health Anxiety Inventory, the Toronto Alexithymia Scale (TAS-20), and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The mean age, whether the individual was an only child, residence (urban or rural), and were significantly different between the groups. The self-assessment scores were also significantly different between the groups. The Short Health Anxiety Inventory total score and the factor of fearing the likelihood of becoming ill were significantly negatively correlated with the Life Satisfaction Scales Applicable to College Students total score and its two factors, but were significantly positively correlated with psychoticism, neuroticism, and TAS-20 total scores and its scores of the three TAS-20 factors. The negative consequence scale of Short Health Anxiety Inventory was not significantly correlated with externally oriented thinking, but was significantly negatively correlated with extraversion. A hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicted that objective satisfaction, subjective satisfaction, neuroticism, and the three factors of TAS-20 were predictors of health anxiety.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Health anxiety was correlated with life satisfaction, personality, and alexithymia in junior college nursing students. Subjective and objective satisfaction, neuroticism, and the identification and expression of emotions may be predictors of health anxiety in nursing students.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatics and Psychiatry, Affiliated Zhongda Hospital, Medical School of Southeast University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China ; Nursing Faculty of Southeast University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yuqun
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Nanjing Health School, Nanjing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yueqiu
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatics and Psychiatry, Affiliated Zhongda Hospital, Medical School of Southeast University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Shengqin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Mao
authors.affiliation: Nursing Department, Affiliated Zhongda Hospital, Medical School of Southeast University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Guohong
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychosomatics and Psychiatry, Affiliated Zhongda Hospital, Medical School of Southeast University, Nanjing, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yonggui
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Yuan
keywords: alexithymia; life satisfaction; personality