A communication model of health anxiety: How health care providers and patients can improve interactions

This paper is concerned with reducing the communication difficulties that arise during health care provider interactions with individuals with health anxiety. This topic is of particular interest to the field of health communication because anxiety can effect the individual's perception of susceptibility of disease, how they communicate about disease, and their information seeking behaviors. It can also affect those who interact with people with health anxiety, usually resulting in frustrating communication patterns and behaviors. Often both participants in these types of interpersonal interactions, whether health care professionals or family members, are frustrated by and unsatisfied with the communication (Baur, 1988; Cantor, 1996).

In an attempt to better address these difficulties, the psychological model of health anxiety, which was developed for therapy and treatment purposes, is reviewed and its potential application to communication is considered. Using some of the constructs found in the psychological model, the health anxiety reduction process (HARP) is introduced as a way to reduce anxiety and increase health-related advice/behavior adherence. The learning objectives of this paper are to define health anxiety and explain how it impacts health interactions, describe the psychological model of health anxiety, and discuss how concepts from that model could be used to improve communication with patients who are anxious/nervous in health contexts.