Psychosomatics 46:6, November-December 2005 http://psy.psychiatryonline.org 529 Prevalence and Correlates of Illness Worry in the General Population RUSSELL NOYES,JR., M.D., CAROLINE P. CARNEY, M.D., M.S. STEPHEN L. HILLIS,PH.D., LAURA E. JONES, M.S. DOUGLAS R. LANGBEHN, M.D., PH.D. The prevalence and correlates of illness worry in the general population were investigated in a representative sample. The authors screened residents of the United States by telephone, and more detailed interviews were conducted with 123 respondents who reported at least 1 month of worry about serious illness in the past 12 months and an equal number of randomly selected persons without such worry. Data on demographic characteristics, medical and psychiatric con- ditions, functional impairment, and health care utilization were collected. At least 1 month of worry was endorsed by 13.1% of the screened population. Correlates of worry included a cluster of psychiatric conditions (major depressive episode, panic attacks, and generalized anxiety disor- der) and three clusters of physical conditions (heart disease, cancer, and other diseases).Worry about serious illness was associated with functional impairment and health care utilization. (Psychosomatics 2005; 46:529–539) Received March 22, 2004; revision received Dec. 13, 2004; accepted Feb. 2, 2005. From the Department of Psychiatry, University of Iowa Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, IA; the Depart- ments of Internal Medicine and Psychiatry and the Regenstrief Institute, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis; the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Iowa City Veterans Affairs Medical Cen- ter, Iowa City, IA; and the Department of Biostatistics, College of Public Health, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Noyes, Psychiatry Research, Medical Education Building, Iowa City, IA 52242-1000; russell-noyes@uiowa.edu (e-mail). Copyright  2005 The Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine. H ypochondriasis is characterized by excessive or un- realistic worry about serious illness that persists for 6 months or more. 1 Worry of this kind affects an estimated 2%–7% of primary care outpatients, among whom it is associated with impairment in functioning and increased utilization of health services. 2 It is a significant problem, yet relatively little is known about its epidemiology. Few community surveys have been done, and most information about prevalence, risk factors, coexisting disorders, and morbidity has come from general medical and psychiatric populations. Data from these sources are confounded by treatment-seeking and may reflect greater severity of ill- ness worry. We undertook a survey of the general popu- lation to determine the prevalence, correlates, and morbid- ity associated with this worry. Existing surveys suggest that DSM-IV hypochondri- asis may be infrequent in the general population. 3–6 How- ever, significant illness or hypochondriacal worry appears to be more common; a frequency of 6% was reported in one survey and 10% in another. 6,7 Many researchers rec- ognize a continuum, with normal illness worry at one end and hypochondriasis at the other. When a dimensional measure reflecting such a continuum is used, many persons in the community score high. In one study, 8% of respon- dents scored 8 on the 14-item Whiteley Index of Hypo- chondriasis. 7 Another study found that a score of 5 dis- criminated between medical outpatients with and without hypochondriasis. 8 Yet, no diagnostic threshold for the dis- order has been established. Relatively little information about risk factors has emerged from community surveys. One study observed