OBJECTIVE: The specificity of Salkovskis and Warwick's (2001) 4 health-related dysfunctional beliefs to health anxiety was examined. METHOD: Specificity was examined using a medically healthy sample of community members recruited through the Internet (N = 410, mean age = 32.9 years, 55.4% female). Structural equation modeling was used to compare the equivalence of latent correlations and partial path coefficients that controlled for the overlap among the targeted dysfunctional beliefs. RESULTS: Health-related dysfunctional beliefs were significantly more strongly related to health anxiety than obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Further, health-related dysfunctional beliefs continued to share robust relations with health anxiety after controlling for related dysfunctional beliefs, although anxiety sensitivity appeared particularly relevant to health anxiety as well. CONCLUSIONS: These results support the specificity of Salkovskis and Warwick's health-related dysfunctional beliefs to health anxiety, as well as the importance given to dysfunctional beliefs within cognitive-behavioral models and treatments of health anxiety.
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Thomas A. Fergus (2013) studied this question.