hypochondriasis

From New Latin; by surface analysis, hypochondr(ium) +‎ -iasis. See also hypochondria, hypochondrium, and Wikipedia at hypochondriasis § Etymology.

hypochondriasis (countable and uncountable, plural hypochondriases)

1. (medicine) A mental disorder (in some classifications of such disorders, including ICD-11) that is characterized by excessive fear of or preoccupation with a serious illness, despite medical testing and reassurance to the contrary.

   Hypernyms: somatoform disorder < disorder, disease < condition

   Hyponym: medical students' disease

   Near-synonym: hypochondria

   • 2022, American Psychiatric Association, DSM-5-TR: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision, American Psychiatric Association, →ISBN, page 1463:

     Most individuals who previously would have been diagnosed with hypochondriasis in DSM-IV [1994] (preoccupation with having a serious disease based on the individual’s misinterpretation of bodily symptoms) are now classified as having somatic symptom disorder; however, in one-third of cases, the diagnosis of illness anxiety disorder applies instead.

Both hypochondriasis and hypochondria, which have often been used synonymously (depending on usage details), are no longer the name of a current medical diagnosis in the disease classification of the latest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, where their referents now map to either of two newer diagnoses, depending on the details of the case: either somatic symptom disorder or illness anxiety disorder.^[1] In the ICD-11, however, hypochondriasis remains the name that maps to most or all of the referents.

• “hypochondriasis”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “hypochondriasis”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “hypochondriasis”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.