A type of talk therapy can help hypochondriacs recognize their illnesses are only in their heads, a study said Tuesday.
The condition, which afflicts one in 20 Americans and siphons $150 billion from the U.S. economy, is marked by persistent fear or a belief that one has a serious, undiagnosed illness.
Currently, there is no widely accepted treatment for hypochondria, which researchers said is often misunderstood and rarely studied.
In the study, 187 patients were divided into two groups with one attending six 90-minute sessions of cognitive behavioral therapy over six weeks and the other receiving normal medical care.
Those undergoing therapy got help identifying psychological motives such as their moods, whether they were hypervigilant concerning their bodies, whether they carried strong beliefs about the symptoms or causes of disease, and whether they frequently adopted the role of a sick person.
“At 12-month follow-up, (therapy) patients had significantly lower levels of hypochondriacal symptoms, beliefs, and attitudes and health-related anxiety,” wrote study author Arthur Barsky of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, in Boston, in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
“Our data shows that cognitive behavioral therapy is a tool physicians can use to care for these patients, making a marked difference in how they feel and act,” he said.