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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Screening for Hypochondriasis With the Illness Attitude Scales

Gaby BleichhardtFlorian WeckWolfgang Hiller

subject

AdultMalemedicine.medical_specialtyAdolescentPersonality InventoryPsychometricsValidation testHealth Toxicology and MutagenesisTest validitySensitivity and SpecificityYoung AdultSex FactorsArts and Humanities (miscellaneous)German populationGermanymedicineHumansPsychiatryAgedAged 80 and overPsychiatric Status Rating ScalesAge FactorsDiscriminant validityReproducibility of ResultsMiddle AgedHypochondriasisClinical PsychologyConvergent validityPsychiatric status rating scalesEducational StatusFemalePersonality Assessment InventoryPsychology

description

The Illness Attitude Scales (IAS; Kellner, 1986, 1987) may prove highly useful for the screening of hypochondriasis. We expected the IAS subscales to be equally as effective as the 7-item short version of the Whiteley Index (Whiteley-7; Fink et al., 1999), which has previously been shown to be useful in screening for somatoform disorders. We investigated participants of a German population (n = 1,575) and 61 patients with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed. [DSM-IV]; American Psychiatric Association, 1994) diagnosis of hypochondriasis. The Bodily Preoccupations (BP) subscale showed high sensitivity (.92) and specificity (.90) as well as demonstrating convergent and discriminant validity. We found evidence for the superiority of the BP subscale over the Whiteley-7 in the screening of hypochondriasis.

yearjournalcountryeditionlanguage
2010-04-22Journal of Personality Assessment
https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891003670216