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hypochondriasis

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.04 sec.

hypochondriasis

Mental disorder in which an individual is excessively preoccupied with his own health and inclined to treat insignificant physical signs or symptoms as evidence of a serious disease. The hypochondriac may become convinced that he is ill even though he has no symptoms at all, or may exaggerate the importance of minor aches and pains, becoming obsessed with the fear of a life-threatening illness. A doctor's reassurances often have only a slight or temporary effect on the hypochondriac's anxieties. Hypochondriasis usually first manifests itself in early adulthood and is equally common among males and females. In some cases it may represent a psychological coping mechanism that the individual resorts to in order to deal with stressful life situations.


hypochondriasis [‚hī·pə·kən′drī·ə·səs]
(psychology)
A chronic condition in which the patient is morbidly concerned with his own health and believes himself suffering from grave bodily diseases. Also known as hypochondria.


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2% of patients presented to GPs in NSW with a primary diagnosis of hypochondriasis.
Acceptable test-retest reliability and correlations with other personality measures (Self-Consciousness Inventory, Hypochondriasis scale of the MMPI, and the Emotionality scale of the EASI) were also achieved.
The first psychiatry textbook published in the United States said that masturbation "produces seminal weakness, impotence, dysury, tabes dorsalis, pulmonary consumption, dyspepsia, dimness of sight, vertigo, epilepsy, hypochondriasis, loss of memory, manalgia, fatuity and death.
 
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