Cognitive Behavior Therapy via the Internet Effectively Treats Health Anxiety

Researchers have found that exposure-based cognitive behavior therapy via internet is more effective in treating health anxiety than an active psychological treatment with relaxation and stress management.

The study, led by researchers at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience in the Karolinska Institutet, found that exposure-based cognitive behavior therapy via internet can effectively treat health anxiety - an anxiety disorder that has an obsessive preoccupation with being seriously ill.

Health anxiety, also known as anxiety disorder, is the obsession with worrying about health. This worry finally becomes a major problem causing distress and inability to function properly. Those with hypochondria have chest pain or headaches and they assume it to be some major serious disease. At times this health anxiety is due to mental illness like depression or anxiety disorder.

Studies conducted earlier showed that health anxiety can be treated with an exposure-based cognitive behavior therapy via internet. During therapy, the patients expose themselves to circumstances that cause health anxiety.

In the current study, the researchers for the first time conducted a comparison between exposure-based Internet treatment to active psychological treatment based on relaxation and stress management. Both the treatments were conducted for 12 weeks. A total of 158 participants participated in the treatment via the internet and also had access to therapists primarily through email.

The researchers noted that participants availing both the treatments considered it to be equally effective. The participants availing both the treatments noticed a reduction in health anxiety to a greater extent as compared to the treatment based on relaxation and stress management.

The study highlights the key factors needed in treating health anxiety. It also reveals that internet-based therapy can up access to evidence-based psychological treatment for health anxiety.

"More people can be treated since the treatment time per patient is significantly lower than for traditional treatment.  Internet treatment is independent of physical distance and, in time, this means that treatment can be administered to people who live in rural areas or in places where there is no outpatient psychiatry with access to psychologists with CBT expertise," said PhD and licensed psychologist Erik Hedman, who led the study.

The finding was presented in British Journal of Psychiatry.