Picture a busy A&E department on a winter evening. Among the emergencies – heart attacks, broken bones, severe injuries – sits someone with a sore throat. Another with an ingrown toenail. Last winter in England, over 200,000 people turned up to emergency departments with complaints like these, leading many to ask: are people misusing A&E – or is something else going on?
A perspective not always considered in this discussion is that the sore throat (or other seemingly minor ailment) isn’t really the problem. The problem is the terror that it might be something worse. Unfortunately, the healthcare system has no idea how to address that fear.
The term for this fear is health anxiety. A person with health anxiety constantly worries that they might be sick or have a serious disease. It’s accompanied by repeatedly checking the body for symptoms, obsessively searching online for explanations and constantly seeking reassurance – often from medical professionals.
