title: Health anxiety symptoms in children and adolescents diagnosed with OCD.
abstract: Health anxiety (HA) is an overlooked area in paediatric research. Little is known about the occurrence of HA symptoms in a child and adolescent psychiatric setting, and there are no age-appropriate diagnostic criteria and only limited number of assessment tools. It is therefore likely that HA is seen as part of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) due to construct overlap and the diagnostic uncertainty of HA in this age group. In the present study, the extent of HA symptoms was investigated in 94 children and adolescents with a primary ICD-10 diagnosis of OCD. Self-reported HA symptoms were assessed using the Childhood Illness Attitude Scales. Clinician-rated OCD symptoms and severity were measured using the Children's Yale Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale. Information on socio-demographics was obtained from the child's/adolescent's medical record. The distribution of HA symptoms resembled a normal curve shifted to the right compared with a normal population of Danish children, and 30 % presented with high HA symptoms. Chi-squared tests were used to examine the proportion of children and adolescents with high HA symptoms in relation to various clinical characteristics. Clinician-rated illness worries and comorbid anxiety disorder were associated with high self-reported HA symptoms. The results contribute to the understanding of how HA and OCD overlap conceptually in young patients and bring attention to the need for improved recognition of OCD patients dominated by illness worries. Further research in the description of childhood HA is important in order to understand whether HA is a distinct disorder early in life.
authors.affiliation: Research Clinic for Functional Disorders and Psychosomatics, Aarhus University Hospital, Noerrebrogade 44, 8000, Aarhus C, Denmark. villadsen.anna@gmail.com.|Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus C, Denmark. villadsen.anna@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Anna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Villadsen
authors.affiliation: Research Clinic for Functional Disorders and Psychosomatics, Aarhus University Hospital, Noerrebrogade 44, 8000, Aarhus C, Denmark.
authors.forename: Mette V
authors.initials: MV
authors.lastname: Thorgaard
authors.affiliation: Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus C, Denmark.
authors.forename: Katja A
authors.initials: KA
authors.lastname: Hybel
authors.affiliation: Research Clinic for Functional Disorders and Psychosomatics, Aarhus University Hospital, Noerrebrogade 44, 8000, Aarhus C, Denmark.
authors.forename: Jens Søndergaard
authors.initials: JS
authors.lastname: Jensen
authors.affiliation: Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus C, Denmark.
authors.forename: Per H
authors.initials: PH
authors.lastname: Thomsen
authors.affiliation: Research Clinic for Functional Disorders and Psychosomatics, Aarhus University Hospital, Noerrebrogade 44, 8000, Aarhus C, Denmark.|Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus C, Denmark.
authors.forename: Charlotte U
authors.initials: CU
authors.lastname: Rask
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D038801:International Classification of Diseases; D008297:Male; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors
keywords: Child and adolescent psychiatry; Childhood Illness Attitude Scales; Clinical sample; Health anxiety; Hypochondriasis; Obsessive compulsive disorder