Hypochondriacal concerns and somatic symptoms in patients with chronic airflow obstruction.

In order to explore hypochondriacal concerns in patients with Chronic Airflow Obstruction (CAO) the authors administered the Illness Attitude Scales and the somatization, anxiety, depression and anger-hostility scales of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist to 50 patients with CAO and to matched family practice patients. Somatic symptoms were significantly correlated with fears of disease and hypochondriacal concerns in family practice patients, but were unrelated in CAO. Patients with CAO, although more anxious, depressed and with more severe somatic symptoms than family practice patients, had fewer hypochondriacal concerns. In this respect patients with CAO were unlike any other group previously studied.