Citation

Vervaeke GA, Bouman TK, Valmaggia LR. Psychother. Psychosom. 1999; 68(1): 22-25.

Affiliation

Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Karger Publishers)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

9873238

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Attentional processes are assumed to play an important role in the maintenance of illness anxiety, although empirical support is relatively scarce. METHODS: The present study explores the relationship between selective attention (i.e. private body consciousness and symptom reporting), intensive concentration (i.e. attentional control and sustained attention), and illness anxiety in 57 non-clinical subjects. RESULTS: Zero-order and multiple correlations suggest that illness anxiety is significantly related to cognitive failures in everyday life and private body consciousness and to a lesser extent to symptom reporting. CONCLUSION: It is concluded that illness anxiety can be partly predicted from specific attentional variables. However, specific operationalizations of attentional parameters seems to determine the existence and magnitude of these relations.

Language: en