Heidelberg Institute for Global Health (HIGH), Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital, Heidelberg University, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany.
BMC Public Health. 2023 Nov 13;23(1):2237. doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-17159-5.
Recent studies have shown a lifetime prevalence of 5.7% for health anxiety/hypochondriasis resulting in increased healthcare service utilisation and disability as consequences. To the best of our knowledge, there has been no systematic review examining the global costs of hypochondriasis, encompassing both direct and indirect costs. Our objective was to synthesize the available evidence on the economic burden of health anxiety and hypochondriasis to identify research gaps and provide guidance and insights for policymakers and future research.
A systematic literature search was conducted using PubMed, Web of Science, PsycInfo, EconLit, IBSS and Google Scholar without any time limit, up until April 2022. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines were followed in this search and the following article selection process. The included studies were systematically analysed and summarized using a predefined data extraction sheet.
Of the 3044 articles identified; 10 publications met our inclusion criteria. The results displayed significant variance in the overall costs listed among the studies. The reported economic burden of hypochondriasis ranged from 857.19 to 21137.55 US$ per capita per year. Most of the investigated costs were direct costs, whereas the assessment of indirect costs was strongly underrepresented.
This systematic review suggests that existing studies underestimate the costs of hypochondriasis due to missing information on indirect costs. Furthermore, there is no uniform data collection of the costs and definition of the disease, so that the few existing data are not comparable and difficult to evaluate. There is a need for standardised data collection and definition of hypochondriasis in future studies to identify major cost drivers as potential target point for interventions.
最近的研究表明，健康焦虑/疑病症的终身患病率为 5.7%，这导致了医疗保健服务利用的增加和残疾等后果。据我们所知，还没有系统的综述检查疑病症的全球成本，包括直接和间接成本。我们的目的是综合健康焦虑和疑病症的经济负担的现有证据，以确定研究空白，并为政策制定者和未来的研究提供指导和见解。
使用 PubMed、Web of Science、PsycInfo、EconLit、IBSS 和 Google Scholar 进行了系统的文献检索，没有时间限制，截至 2022 年 4 月。本搜索遵循了系统评价和荟萃分析的首选报告项目 (PRISMA) 指南，并遵循了以下文章选择过程。使用预先确定的数据提取表对纳入的研究进行了系统分析和总结。
在 3044 篇文章中；有 10 篇出版物符合我们的纳入标准。研究中列出的总费用存在显著差异。疑病症的经济负担报告范围为 857.19 至 21137.55 美元/人/年。大多数研究的调查成本是直接成本，而间接成本的评估则严重不足。
这项系统综述表明，由于缺乏间接成本的信息，现有的研究低估了疑病症的成本。此外，对成本和疾病的定义没有统一的数据收集，因此，现有的少量数据不可比，也难以评估。未来的研究需要标准化数据收集和疑病症的定义，以确定主要的成本驱动因素，作为干预的潜在目标点。
