Abstract
Factors related to the hypochondriacal worry in Primary Care. Two groups of patients from a Primary Care Center, which had been formed taking as a basis the fulfilment of 4 criteria for the definition of high health anxiety, were evaluated, according to a number of variables, in two periods. The results showed that in different variables (as emotional distress, somatization and several experiences related to disease all through their lives), the group of patients with high health anxiety (GAS;n=25) differed from the control group (GC;n=60). One year later, in the follow-up, a remarkable stability of the hypochondriacal attitudes was observed. Nevertheless, in 50% of the patients from GAS the health anxiety had disminished so that they didn't fulfil the criteria of the classification. The patients with transient hypochondriacal worry, in spite of showing some distinctive characteristics in the follow-up, unlike the group with continuous worry, also tended to differ from control group. Hypochondriacal worry was assotated with persistent physical and emotional distress.
