Treatment

The treatment of patients with illness anxiety disorder primarily is focused on helping patients cope with their health anxieties and they should ideally be referred to a specialist health care professional or a psychiatrist.

• psychotherapy is the first-line treatment. Cognitive-behavioural therapy focuses on treating the patient's dysfunctional maladaptive cognitive beliefs by behavioural modification strategies and can address the patient's habits of excessive body checking for signs of illness. (1)
• pharmacological drugs are the second-line treatment for IAD. Antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) are proven to be effective in this condition. Patients who respond to antidepressant therapy are recommended to receive maintenance treatment for at least 6 to 12 months. Most patients require a combination of psychotherapy and pharmacological agents. (2)

Reference

1. Newby JM, Hobbs MJ, Mahoney AEJ, Wong SK, Andrews G. DSM-5 illness anxiety disorder and somatic symptom disorder: Comorbidity, correlates, and overlap with DSM-IV hypochondriasis. J Psychosom Res. 2017 Oct;101:31-37
2. Scarella TM, Boland RJ, Barsky AJ. Illness Anxiety Disorder: Psychopathology, Epidemiology, Clinical Characteristics, and Treatment. Psychosom Med. 2019 Jun;81(5):398-407