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Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions

BACKGROUND: Hypochondriacal attitudes were associated with cognitions not related to illness: Social fears, low self-esteem, and reduced warm glow effect, i.e. less positive appraisal of familiar stimuli. Only a single study had investigated the correlation of hypochondriacal attitudes with the warm...

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Autores principales: Schwenzer, Michael, Mathiak, Klaus
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3534222/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23075409
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-12-173
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author Schwenzer, Michael
Mathiak, Klaus
author_facet Schwenzer, Michael
Mathiak, Klaus
author_sort Schwenzer, Michael
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Hypochondriacal attitudes were associated with cognitions not related to illness: Social fears, low self-esteem, and reduced warm glow effect, i.e. less positive appraisal of familiar stimuli. Only a single study had investigated the correlation of hypochondriacal attitudes with the warm glow effect so far and the present study aimed to corroborate this association. Particularly, the present investigation tested for the first time whether social fears, low self-esteem, and reduced warm glow effect represent distinct or related biases in hypochondriacal attitudes. METHODS: Fifty-five volunteers filled in the Hypochondriacal Beliefs and Disease Phobia scales of the Illness Attitude Scales, two scales enquiring social fears of criticism and intimacy, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. The interaction of valence and spontaneous familiarity ratings of Chinese characters indicated the warm glow effect. RESULTS: A stepwise regression model revealed specific covariance of social fears and warm glow with hypochondriacal attitudes independent from the respective other variable. The correlation between low self-esteem and hypochondriacal attitudes missed significance. CONCLUSIONS: Hypochondriacal attitudes are embedded in a heterogeneous cluster of non-illness-related cognitions. Each social fears and a reduced cognitive capacity to associate two features – positive appraisal and familiarity - could diminish the susceptibility to safety signals such as medical reassurance. To compensate for reduced susceptibility to safety signals, multifocal treatment and repeated consultations appear advisable.
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spelling pubmed-35342222013-01-07 Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions Schwenzer, Michael Mathiak, Klaus BMC Psychiatry Research Article BACKGROUND: Hypochondriacal attitudes were associated with cognitions not related to illness: Social fears, low self-esteem, and reduced warm glow effect, i.e. less positive appraisal of familiar stimuli. Only a single study had investigated the correlation of hypochondriacal attitudes with the warm glow effect so far and the present study aimed to corroborate this association. Particularly, the present investigation tested for the first time whether social fears, low self-esteem, and reduced warm glow effect represent distinct or related biases in hypochondriacal attitudes. METHODS: Fifty-five volunteers filled in the Hypochondriacal Beliefs and Disease Phobia scales of the Illness Attitude Scales, two scales enquiring social fears of criticism and intimacy, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. The interaction of valence and spontaneous familiarity ratings of Chinese characters indicated the warm glow effect. RESULTS: A stepwise regression model revealed specific covariance of social fears and warm glow with hypochondriacal attitudes independent from the respective other variable. The correlation between low self-esteem and hypochondriacal attitudes missed significance. CONCLUSIONS: Hypochondriacal attitudes are embedded in a heterogeneous cluster of non-illness-related cognitions. Each social fears and a reduced cognitive capacity to associate two features – positive appraisal and familiarity - could diminish the susceptibility to safety signals such as medical reassurance. To compensate for reduced susceptibility to safety signals, multifocal treatment and repeated consultations appear advisable. BioMed Central 2012-10-17 /pmc/articles/PMC3534222/ /pubmed/23075409 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-12-173 Text en Copyright ©2012 Schwenzer and Mathiak.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Schwenzer, Michael
Mathiak, Klaus
Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions
title Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions
title_full Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions
title_fullStr Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions
title_full_unstemmed Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions
title_short Hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions
title_sort hypochondriacal attitudes comprise heterogeneous non-illness-related cognitions
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3534222/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23075409
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-12-173
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