Describe the similarities and differences between illness anxiety disorder and somatic symptom disorder

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Somatic symptom disorder shares some features with illness anxiety disorder, including a history of family illness or injury during childhood. But this history is a minor factor at best because countless families experience chronic illness or injuries without passing on severe anxiety of being ill or the sick role to children. Something else contributes strongly to somatic symptom disorder.
In illness anxiety disorder, as we know it today, severe anxiety is focused on the possibility of having a serious disease. The threat seems so real that reassurance from physicians does not seem to help. In illness anxiety disorder, the individual is preoccupied with bodily symptoms, misinterpreting them as indicative of illness or disease. Almost any physical sensation may become the basis for concern for individuals with illness anxiety disorder.
In somatic symptom disorder, patients go to the doctor with seemingly endless lists of somatic complaints for which he could find no medical basis. Despite the doctor's negative findings, patients return shortly with either the same complaints or new lists containing slight variations.
Individuals with illness anxiety disorder most often take immediate action on noticing a symptom by calling the doctor or taking medication. People with somatic symptom, on the other hand, do not feel the urgency to take action but continually feel weak and ill, and they avoid exercising, thinking it will make them worse.