Because of misinterpreting bodily symptoms, the patient becomes preoccupied with ideas or fears of having a serious illness. Appropriate medical investigation and reassurance do not relieve these ideas. They cause distress that is clinically important or impair work, social or personal functioning. They have lasted 6 months or longer. These ideas are do better explained by Generalized Anxiety Disorder , Major Depressive Episode, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder , Panic Disorder, Separation Anxiety or a different Somatoform Disorder.
Some disorders have similar or even the same symptoms.
Patients become excessively worried about a physical symptom and cannot shake the idea that something is seriously wrong with them. They seek many tests and much reassurance from their physicians, who tend to get annoyed because the patients are rarely satisfied, complain frequently about their care, and may get worse when they are offered reassurance. The patients often seem highly invested in their own suffering. The health care provider should inform the person that no organic disease is present, but that continued medical follow-up will help control the symptoms. The person with hypochondriasis feels real distress, so the symptoms should not be denied or challenged by others.