Annual Research Review: Health anxiety in children and adolescents-developmental aspects and cross-generational influences.

Health anxiety involves excessive worries about one's health along with beliefs one has an illness or may contract a serious disease. Concerning evidence suggests that health anxiety is on the rise in society, possibly further fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic. Recent classification systems acknowledge that impairing health-related worries and beliefs can emerge in early childhood with significant levels of symptoms persisting throughout childhood, and possibly continuous with diagnostic considerations in adulthood. This narrative review summarizes recent research advances in health anxiety in children and adolescents, focusing on various developmental aspects of health anxiety and related concepts in youths. Findings suggest that health anxiety symptoms in young age groups are associated with impairment, distress, and increased healthcare use, as well as substantial comorbidity with mainly other emotional problems and disorders. Furthermore, longitudinal studies suggest that childhood health anxiety can persist across adolescence, perhaps with links to chronic courses in adulthood. The growing literature was further reviewed, thus extending our understanding of early risk factors, including the potential role of exposure to serious illness and transgenerational transmission of health anxiety. Learning more about developmental trajectories will be highly relevant to inform strategies for early detection and prevention. While modified cognitive behavioral therapies in adults are successful in treating health anxiety, specific interventions have not yet been tested in youths. Given substantial overlaps with other psychopathology, it could be important to develop and explore more transdiagnostic and scalable approaches that take advantage of common factors in psychotherapy, while also including a wider perspective on potential familiar maladaptive illness cognitions and behaviors.

Specific Contamination Symptoms are Associated with Experiencing a Limited Response of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy in Pediatric Patients with OCD.

A recent study identified three distinct treatment-response trajectories in pediatric OCD where higher levels of contamination symptoms predicted a limited response to cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). This study extends these findings by examining which specific symptoms characterize limited CBT response from baseline to 3-year follow-up, with an emphasis on contamination symptoms. The study sample comprised 269 pediatric patients with OCD, all receiving stepped-care treatment with manualized CBT. Differences in single item-reporting between the three trajectory groups were examined using linear mixed-effect modeling. Limited responders displayed a higher symptom load across all OCD symptom categories at 3-year follow-up, dominated by contamination symptoms. Five of these (obsessions about dirt and germs, about bodily fluids, about the feeling of contamination and compulsions regarding handwashing and showering) showed persistence from baseline to 3-year follow-up. The results indicate that presence of specific contamination symptoms may influence long-term symptom severity trajectories in young patients with OCD.

Health anxiety symptoms in pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder: patient characteristics and effect on treatment outcome.

The aim was to explore the potential clinical role of health anxiety (HA) symptoms in children and adolescents diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). The study investigated differences in demographic and various clinical variables between young people with OCD, with and without HA symptoms, and the effect of HA symptoms on overall OCD treatment outcome. The study sample comprised 269 children and adolescents with OCD (aged 7-17 years) from the large Nordic Long-term OCD Treatment Study. OCD symptoms and severity were assessed with The Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (CY-BOCS), which includes one item regarding HA-like obsessions and one item regarding HA-like compulsions that were used to define the HA group. Several other instruments were used to assess comorbidity and other clinical aspects. All participants were treated with 14 weekly protocolled sessions of exposure-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). HA symptoms were present in 31% of participants. Other anxiety symptoms and comorbid anxiety disorders were more prevalent among those with HA symptoms. These patients also presented with significantly more types of OCD symptoms. HA symptoms were reduced following OCD treatment with CBT and having HA symptoms did not affect CBT outcome. Results suggest that pediatric OCD with HA symptoms is characterized by more anxiety symptoms and a more heterogeneous OCD symptom profile. Standardized CBT seems equally effective in treating child and adolescent OCD with or without HA symptoms.Clinical trials registration: Nordic Long-term Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Treatment Study: www.controlled-trials.com ; ISRCTN66385119.