Nosophobia

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),[3] cancer (carcinophobia), heart diseases (cardiophobia[4]), and catching the cold or flu.

Nosophobia
SpecialtyPsychiatry

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.[5]

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

See also

References
  1. Mariner WK (November 1995). "AIDS phobia, public health warnings, and lawsuits: deterring harm or rewarding ignorance?". American Journal of Public Health. 85 (11): 1562–8. doi:10.2105/AJPH.85.11.1562. PMC 1615706. PMID 7485674.
  2. Riva MA, Ploia PR, Rocca S, Cesana G (September 2013). ""Phthisiophobia": the difficult recognition of transmission of tuberculosis to health care workers". La Medicina Del Lavoro. 104 (5): 359–67. PMID 24180084.
  3. Janssen, Diederik F. (2020). "Noddle Pox: Syphilis and the Conception of Nosomania/Nosophobia (c. 1665–c. 1965)". Canadian Bulletin of Medical History. University of Toronto Press Inc. (UTPress). 37 (2): 319–359. doi:10.3138/cbmh.432-032020. ISSN 0823-2105.
  4. Eifert GH (July 1992). "Cardiophobia: a paradigmatic behavioural model of heart-focused anxiety and non-anginal chest pain". Behaviour Research and Therapy. 30 (4): 329–45. doi:10.1016/0005-7967(92)90045-I. PMID 1616469.
  5. Hunter RC, Lohrenz JG, Schwartzman AE (August 1964). "Nosophobia and hypochondriasis in medical students". The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 139: 147–52. doi:10.1097/00005053-196408000-00008. PMID 14206454.
Classification
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