Background: Health anxiety (HA) refers to excessive and persistent worries about one's health and fear of illness, and it is associated with poor mental health and quality of life.HA is relevant among medical students due to repeated exposure to illness-related information during training.Cyberchondria, trait anxiety, depression, and resilience may be associated with HA, but their independent associations remain unclear in this population.This study examined the prevalence and psychosocial correlates of HA among undergraduate medical students. Materials and methods:A cross-sectional study was conducted among undergraduate medical students in Northeast India.HA, depression, trait anxiety, resilience, and cyberchondria were assessed using validated self-report rating scales.Bivariate and multiple linear regression were performed with HA scores as the dependent variable.Results: Of 356 eligible students, 296 participated (83.2% response rate), and 44 (14.9%) screened positive for clinically significant HA.In bivariate analyses, depressive symptoms, trait anxiety, and cyberchondria were positively correlated with HA, whereas resilience was negatively correlated with HA (all p-values < 0.001).Female students had higher HA scores than male students (p = 0.02).The regression model was significant, explaining 35% of the variance in HA scores.Higher cyberchondria (B = 0.259, p < 0.001), higher trait anxiety (B = 0.336, p = 0.001), and lower resilience (B = -1.659,p = 0.001) remained independently associated with higher HA scores.Depressive symptoms and gender were not significantly associated after adjustment.Conclusion: Clinically significant HA was common among medical students.Cyberchondria, trait anxiety, and lower resilience were independent correlates of greater HA severity and may be relevant targets for student mental health interventions.
Kumar et al. (Tue,) studied this question.