Do patients with pathological health anxiety fear COVID-19? A time-course analysis of 12 single cases during the "first wave" of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE: Pre-existing health anxiety is associated with an intensified affective response to the novel COVID-19 pandemic in the general population. Still, results on the reaction of people with a diagnosis of pathological health anxiety (i.e., hypochondriasis) are scarce. METHODS: In the present study, we investigated the course of (health) anxiety related to SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 in comparison to (health) anxiety related to other severe diseases (e.g., cancer) in a sample of 12 patients with the diagnosis of pathological health anxiety during the "first wave" of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany. Both SARS-CoV-2 related anxiety and anxiety related to other severe diseases were assessed weekly over 16 measurement points (30.03.-19.07.2020) and primarily analyzed with fixed effects regression analyses. RESULTS: Unexpectedly, SARS-CoV-2 related anxiety was on average significantly lower than anxiety related to other severe diseases (d = -0.54, p < .001) and not significantly associated with anxiety related to other severe diseases or pre-COVID-19 health anxiety. CONCLUSION: It therefore appears premature to assume that SARS-CoV-2 related anxiety and other health worries are necessarily strongly interrelated and comparably high in people with pathological health anxiety.