Over the years, patients suffering from hypochondria have become more and more frequent. What is it? “It’s when someone is in perfect health and fears the onset of an illness at any time in their life: a skin disease, a joint disease, a neurological disease, an ear disease, a heart attack. Everything,” explains Dr. Christian Recchia.
“It is a mental disorder characterized by excessive fear and anxiety about health and bodily functioning. Hypochondriacs obsessively interpret physical signs as symptoms of serious illnesses,” the Elsan website explains. For Dr. Christian Recchia, these patients have a pathology within them similar to a neurosis “which can cause major somatic disorders in this patient that are not necessarily serious pathologies but which will cause skin disorders, respiratory disorders, terrible anxieties with cardiovascular problems, nervousness that can cause hypertension.”
An earlier death?
Dr. Recchia assures that a hypochondriac patient can suffer, “due to his psychological profile”, vascular pathologies, skin pathologies. But if 20 years ago it was quite rare to have a hypochondriac patient, today they are very frequent and increasingly younger.
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The Livi website reminds us that it is possible to receive treatment to relieve hypochondria, in particular by implementing cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which has proven to be an effective approach in the short and long term. According to a scientific study published at the end of 2023, hypochondriacs are more likely to die earlier than others. The conclusions of this study showed that patients with hypochondria were almost four times more likely to die by suicide. They also had a higher risk of death caused by respiratory illnesses such as influenza and Covid.
