Medicine:Nosophobia

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Short description: Specific phobia that involves an irrational fear of contracting a disease
Nosophobia
SpecialtyPsychiatry

Nosophobia is the irrational fear of contracting a disease, a type of specific phobia. Primary fears of this kind are fear of contracting COVID-19 (coronaphobia), HIV infection (AIDS phobia or HIV serophobia),[1] pulmonary tuberculosis (phthisiophobia),[2] venereal diseases (syphilophobia or venereophobia),[citation needed] cancer (carcinophobia), heart diseases (cardiophobia[3]), and catching the cold or flu.

Some authors have suggested that the medical students' disease should accurately be referred to as "nosophobia" rather than "hypochondriasis", because the quoted studies show a very low percentage of hypochondriacal character of the condition.[4]

The word nosophobia comes from the Greek νόσος nosos for "disease".

See also

  • Hypochondria
  • Nosocomephobia, the excessive fear of hospitals
  • List of phobias

References

  1. "AIDS phobia, public health warnings, and lawsuits: deterring harm or rewarding ignorance?". American Journal of Public Health 85 (11): 1562–8. November 1995. doi:10.2105/AJPH.85.11.1562. PMID 7485674. 
  2. ""Phthisiophobia": the difficult recognition of transmission of tuberculosis to health care workers". La Medicina Del Lavoro 104 (5): 359–67. September 2013. PMID 24180084. 
  3. "Cardiophobia: a paradigmatic behavioural model of heart-focused anxiety and non-anginal chest pain". Behaviour Research and Therapy 30 (4): 329–45. July 1992. doi:10.1016/0005-7967(92)90045-I. PMID 1616469. 
  4. "Nosophobia and hypochondriasis in medical students". The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 139: 147–52. August 1964. doi:10.1097/00005053-196408000-00008. PMID 14206454. 

External links

Classification