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Browsing by Author "Unrau, Tiffany"

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    Examining beliefs related to health anxiety
    (2020) Unrau, Tiffany; Penney, Alexander
    While everyone worries about their health from time to time, excessive worrying is maladaptive. Severe health anxiety (HA) is characterized by disproportionate health worries. Furthermore, a person with severe HA may become convinced that they have, or are at risk of developing, a serious illness. The present study examines how different beliefs, such as intolerance of uncertainty (IU), metacognitive beliefs, and cognitive avoidance contribute to HA. Past research has found that IU and metacognitive beliefs contribute significantly to HA, but these factors have not been examined together. Moreover, cognitive avoidance is characteristic of other anxiety disorders, but there is limited research on how it contributes to HA. Specifically, IU refers to the negative reactions and beliefs that an individual may have toward ambiguity. Some individuals cannot tolerate uncertainty, and may cope by seeking excessive reassurance from others or engaging in checking behaviour. Metacognitive beliefs refer to an individual’s beliefs about his or her own thoughts. For example, a specific metacognitive belief is believing that thoughts are uncontrollable. Cognitive avoidance refers to thought strategies that are aimed at avoiding thoughts about undesirable events or problems. Self-report measures will be administered to non-clinical university students (N = 600) to investigate the relationship between HA, IU, metacognitive beliefs, and cognitive avoidance. Additional factors that have been previously found to contribute to HA will also be controlled for. It is hypothesized that IU, metacognitive beliefs, and cognitive avoidance, will have a significant relationship with HA. Expected findings have implications for HA understanding and treatment.
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    Psychological mechanisms of health anxiety: evidence for the metacognitive model
    (2021) Unrau, Tiffany; Penney, Alexander
    Individuals with severe health anxiety (HA) disproportionately believe that they have, or may acquire, a serious illness. Additionally, individuals with severe HA often engage in somatization, which is the tendency to report physical symptoms that do not have a detectable cause. Past research has established that anxiety sensitivity and somatosensory amplification contribute to HA. Other variables, such as intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and metacognitive beliefs, have been recently associated with HA. However, these factors have not been assessed together in a single study. Through self-report questionnaires, the present study examined whether IU, metacognitions, and cognitive avoidance are associated with HA in a university sample (N = 564). Cognitive avoidance was included as an exploratory variable. Using a hierarchical regression analysis, metacognitions about illness beliefs, and metacognitions about the uncontrollability of thoughts, uniquely predicted HA when controlling for both anxiety sensitivity and somatosensory amplification. An additional hierarchical regression analysis determined that metacognitions about illness, metacognitions about the uncontrollability of thoughts, and metacognitions about biased beliefs uniquely predicted somatization when controlling for anxiety sensitivity and somatosensory amplification. IU, and cognitive avoidance, did not emerge as unique predictors for either HA or somatization. These results indicate that both researchers and clinicians may wish to further explore the role of metacognitive beliefs in the development and maintenance of HA.
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    Which dysfunctional beliefs uniquely contribute to health anxiety?
    (2021) Unrau, Tiffany; Penney, Alexander
    Individuals with severe health anxiety (HA) disproportionately believe that they have, or may acquire, a serious illness. Previous research has established that negative affect, anxiety sensitivity, and somatosensory amplification contribute to HA. Other variables, such as intolerance of uncertainty (IU) and metacognitive beliefs, have been recently investigated. However, many of these factors have not been assessed together. Through online self-report questionnaires, the present study examined the relationship between HA and anxiety sensitivity, somatosensory amplification, IU, metacognitions about health, catastrophic beliefs, and cognitive avoidance in a nonclinical university sample (N = 564). Using hierarchical regression analyses, anxiety sensitivity, p < .001, somatosensory amplification, p = .003, and two metacognitions, ps < .001, were found to uniquely predict HA when controlling for positive and negative affect, and generalized anxiety disorder symptoms. The metacognitions were the belief that thoughts can cause illness and the belief that thoughts about illness are uncontrollable. IU, catastrophic beliefs, cognitive avoidance, and metacognitive beliefs about biased thinking were not unique predictors of HA. These results indicate that researchers and clinicians may wish to further explore the role of metacognitive beliefs in the development and maintenance of HA.