Research Article Evaluation of Alexithymia, Somatosensory Sensitivity, and Health Anxiety Levels in Patients with Noncardiac Chest Pain Selma Bozkurt Zincir, 1 Murat Sunbul, 2 Esra Aydin Sunbul, 1 Bahar Dalkilic, 2 Fatma Cengiz, 1 Tarik Kivrak, 2 and Erdal Durmus 2 1 Erenkoy Training and Research Hospital for Psychiatric and Neurological Disorders, Psychiatry Clinic, Istanbul, Turkey 2 Department of Cardiology, Marmara University Faculty of Medicine, Fevzi C ¸ akmak Mahallesi, Mimar Sinan Caddesi, No. 41, ¨ Ustkaynarca, Pendik, 34899 Istanbul, Turkey Correspondence should be addressed to Murat Sunbul; drsunbul@yahoo.com.tr Received 4 February 2014; Accepted 16 May 2014; Published 25 May 2014 Academic Editor: Namal Wijesinghe Copyright © 2014 Selma Bozkurt Zincir et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective. Noncardiac chest pain (NCCP) is seen more frequently in young population and in these patients loss of function is evolving in social and professional areas. he aim of the study is to evaluate the levels of anxiety and somatic perception in patients with chest pain presenting to cardiology clinic. Methods. Fity-one patients with noncardiac chest pain and 51 healthy controls were included in the study. All participants performed self-report based health anxiety inventory (HAI), somatosensory ampliication scale (SAS), and Toronto alexithymia scale (TAS). Results. he patient group had signiicantly higher scores on the SAS, HAI-1, and HAI-T scales compared to controls ( < 0.001,  = 0.006, and  = 0.038, resp.). SAS, HAI-1, and HAI-T scores were signiicantly higher in female patients than male ( = 0.002, 0.036, and 0.039, resp.). here were signiicant diferences in all TAS subscale scores between two groups. Patients, who had total TAS score more than 50, also presented higher levels of health anxiety ( = 0.045). Conclusions. Anxiety, somatic symptoms, and the exaggerated sense of bodily sensations are common in patients with NCCP. hese patients unnecessarily occupy the cardiology outpatient clinics. hese negative results can be eliminated when consultation-liaison psychiatry evaluates these patients in collaboration with cardiology departments. 1. Introduction Chest pain is one of the most common medical complaints in general population. Since it may be a warning sign of coro- nary artery disease (CAD) or myocardial infarction (MI), it is also one of the most frightening pains [1, 2]. Between 52% and 77% of patients presenting to the emergency department and referred for coronary angiography sufer chest pain that is not cardiac in origin and many chest pain patients do not receive a medical explanation for their pain [3–5]. Noncardiac chest pain (NCCP) is deined as a recurrent chest pain that is indistinguishable from ischemic heart pain ater a reasonable workup has excluded a cardiac cause. NCCP may report squeezing or burning substernal chest pain, which may radiate to the neck, arms, jaws, and back, and is indistinguishable from cardiac angina [6]. NCCP is sometimes regarded as the sensitive heart because of the higher rate of occurrence and greater pain intensity in this pain population [7, 8]. Early conceptualizations of cardiophobia characterized this syndrome by fears of heart attack and death, suggesting that NCCP patients may focus attention on their heart when experiencing stress and arousal [9–11]. hese patients also use more commonly sensory and afective words than patients with ischemic heart disease [9]. NCCP patients view their condition as signiicantly less controllable and less understandable than those patients whose pains are of cardiac origin [11–13]. Despite a favorable long-term cardiovascular prognosis [12–15], NCCP is a major public health concern that not all NCCP patients have good outcomes [16]. NCCP is associated with impaired daily activities (e.g., work, walking, exercis- ing, and housework), reduced quality of life, and increased occupational and social disability comparable to patients with CAD [17, 18]. Many patients experience worry, anxious Hindawi Publishing Corporation BioMed Research International Volume 2014, Article ID 896183, 6 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/896183