Also known as health anxiety or hypochondria, illness anxiety disorder is a persistent fear of developing a serious illness or disease.
There are two types of illness anxiety disorder care seeking, when a person seeks extra medical assessments and care avoiding, when a person is too afraid to see a doctor.
The diagnosis of illness anxiety disorder first appeared in 2013, in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). Prior to that time, some people living with extreme health anxiety might have received a diagnosis of hypochondriasis, an outdated term that doctors no longer use.
Hypochondriasis isn’t quite the same as illness anxiety disorder. Hypochondriasis is a person’s worry about illness based solely on a misinterpretation of their symptoms. Illness anxiety disorder covers this and more and has replaced hypochondriasis as a diagnosis.