Hypochondriasis and tendency to adopt the sick role as moderators of the relationship between life-events and somatic symptomatology.

The relationship between measures of hypochondriasis and the tendency to adopt a sick role, life-events and somatic symptomatology was explored. A sample of 85 married couples drawn from the community (n = 170) completed mailed questionnaires about the past year's events and symptoms and about hypochondriasis and sick-role tendency. Life-events were related to symptoms (r = 0.17) as were hypochondriasis, sick-role tendency, and subjects' sex (rs = 0.23, 0.16, 0.22, respectively). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses demonstrated that hypochondriasis and sick-role tendency were also related to the association between events and symptoms, such that subjects with high scores on the former measures showed a reduced event-symptoms correlation compared with low and moderate scorers. Low scorers on hypochondriasis and sick-role tendency had a considerably stronger relationship between events and symptoms compared to those typically reported in the literature. It was suggested that hypochondriasis and sick-role tendency may be moderators of the life-event-symptom relationship and as such deserve more widespread use in life-events research.