Risk Factors of Health Anxiety Among the Young Adults in UK- Report

Running head: HEALTH ANXIETY AMONG THE YOUNG ADULTS
Risk Factors of Health Anxiety among the Young Adults in UK
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HEALTH ANXIETY AMONG THE YOUNG ADULTS1
1. Introduction
1.1 Background
Health anxiety is psychological condition where a person becomes highly obsessive and
anxious about his or her health problem, which is either negligible or completely absence in
his or her body. As per DSM-V Health Anxiety is identified as hypochondriasis in the ICD-
10 /11. According to Starcevic (2013), health anxiety usually starts at the adolescence or in
the phase of young adults. There are multiple, health and environmental risk factors that has
been identified in the cases of Health Anxiety. The focus of this paper is the health anxiety
issues among the young adults in United Kingdom.
1.2 Problem Statement and question
Currently there are many research available that has statistically proven the major risk factors
of the health anxiety within the adult population. On the other hand, most of the studies done
on the anxiety issues in adolescent and young adults are focused on either general anxiety
disorder or educational anxiety disorder. However, the practical evidence and knowledge
about Heath Anxiety and its risk factors in young adult population is extremely limited.
Therefore the research question is:
What are the major risk factors of health anxiety among young adults in UK?
1.3 Aim and objectives
According to the above problem and research question the aim of the study is to explore and
examine the major risk factors with their level of effectiveness on health anxiety among the
young adults in UK. Therefore, the objectives of the study is:

HEALTH ANXIETY AMONG THE YOUNG ADULTS2
 To explore the risk factors of health anxiety among the young adults
 To examine the level of association and of impact the risk factors on the level of
health anxiety
 To find out the most significant and least significant risk factors or predictors of
health anxiety among the young adults
2. Literature Review:
It is a very foundational literature review done by collecting data from various secondary
sources such as previous research papers, published reports, articles, theoretical books and
other in orders. The purpose of this review is to develop basic understanding of the research
variables to form appropriate methodology.
According to Williams and House (2014), health anxiety occurs when anyone perceived
sensation or changes in his or her body and interprets it as a symptoms of serious disease
where not significant cause of wary is present. The study indicates that this mental condition
can ranged from mild to severe level based on the level various medical, psychological and
personal histories of the individual. Initially this disorder was identified as a comorbid
symptoms of other kinds of anxiety disorders. However, as opined by Bailey and Well
(2016), health anxiety or hypochondriasis should be identified as an independent anxiety
disorder, because as per the study the symptoms of health anxiety can be also found in an
individual who does not have any current or previous history of anxiety disorder.
According to Asmundson and Fergus (2019), health anxiety often start in the adolescents and
young adults and without proper intervention it can last across entire lifetime. The study also
found that in this disorder a person often becomes very much worried about health problems
while developing a fear of death or becoming permanently paralysed because of a critical
disease. As studied by Tyrer (2019), the health anxiety could have multiple predictors or