ArticleBMC health services research2022
Health anxiety is an important driver of healthcare use.
Article in BMC health services research, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Ethnic and migration-related inequalities in health anxiety: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Pooled it
- Psychological Distress Among Primary Care Professionals in Singapore: Repeated-Measures Analyses of Two Independent Observation Windows (HADS and GHQ-12).Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- How do discrepancies between self-rated and physical health predict self-reported overnight hospitalizations in later life?British journal of health psychology · 2026Observational
- Worry and Anxiety in the Era of Early Diagnosis and Disease Modifying Treatment for Alzheimer's Disease.Current psychiatry reports · 2026Review
- The interaction between gender, health and smartwatch use on health anxiety.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Prevalence of Illness Anxiety Disorder and Its Relation to Anxiety Among Medical Students in Karachi: A Cross-Sectional Study.Brain and behavior · 2026Article
- Psychological predictors of gerascophobia among middle-aged and older adults: the role of health anxiety and body image satisfaction.GeroScience · 2026Article
- How aging anxiety relates to self-rated health in middle-aged and older adults: the role of psychological pathways.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- The association between health anxiety and visits to traditional and complementary medicine providers in Norway: the Tromsø7 Study.BMC complementary medicine and therapies · 2025Article
- Association Between Preoperative Psychological Distress and Successful Weight Loss After Bariatric Surgery: A Retrospective Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- Health anxiety and work loss in patients diagnosed with serrated polyposis syndrome: A cross sectional study.World journal of clinical oncology · 2025Article
- Positive affect longitudinally buffers the negative effect of health anxiety on gastrointestinal symptoms.Applied psychology. Health and well-being · 2024Article
- Illness Anxiety Disorder: A Review of the Current Research and Future Directions.Current psychiatry reports · 2024Review
- Exploring the Influence of Family Attitudes and Individual Psychological Factors on Antibiotic Utilization: A Pilot Study.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Article
- Article
- Health anxiety, death anxiety and coronaphobia: Predictors of postpartum depression symptomatology during the COVID-19 pandemic.Midwifery · 2023Article
- Investigating and comparing the dimensions of worry of Iranian primiparous women in each trimester of pregnancy.European journal of medical research · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundHealthcare use is increasing, and health anxiety (HA) is recognized as an important associated factor. Previous research on the association between HA and healthcare use has mostly explored HA as a dichotomous construct, which contrasts the understanding of HA as a continuous construct, and compared healthcare use to non-use. There is a need for studies that examine the association between healthcare use and the continuum of HA in a general population.
aimTo explore the association between HA and primary, somatic specialist and mental specialist healthcare use and any differences in the association by level of healthcare use.
methodsThis study used cross-sectional data from the seventh Tromsø study. Eighteen thousand nine hundred sixty-seven participants aged 40 years or older self-reported their primary, somatic specialist and mental specialist healthcare use over the past 12 months. Each health service was categorized into 5 groups according to the level of use. The Whiteley Index-6 (WI-6) was used to measure HA on a 5-point Likert scale, with a total score range of 0-24. Analyses were conducted using unconstrained continuation-ratio logistic regression, in which each level of healthcare use was compared with all lower levels. Morbidity, demographics and social variables were included as confounders.
resultsHA was positively associated with increased utilization of primary, somatic specialist and mental specialist healthcare. Adjusting for confounders, including physical and mental morbidity, did not alter the significant association. For primary and somatic specialist healthcare, each one-point increase in WI-6 score yielded a progressively increased odds ratio (OR) of a higher level of use compared to all lower levels. The ORs ranged from 1.06 to 1.15 and 1.05 to 1.14 for primary and somatic specialist healthcare, respectively. For mental specialist healthcare use, the OR was more constant across levels of use, ranging between 1.06 and 1.08.
conclusionsIn an adult general population, HA, as a continuous construct, was significantly and positively associated with primary, somatic specialist and mental healthcare use. A small increase in HA was associated with progressively increased healthcare use across the three health services, indicating that the impact of HA is more prominent with higher healthcare use.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.