Assessing health concerns

Individual variability in concern about health plays a role in health-relevant cognition and behavior. Our research examined the latent structure of health concerns in two samples, one a young and healthy college sample and the other an older sample of medical outpatients. In both samples, health concerns reflected two underlying components: (a) fear and worry about health and (b) tendency to report problems. Correlations between these components and several individual difference variables theoretically linked to the experience of health concerns provided evidence of concurrent validity. The implications of the separability of reporting a health problem and worrying about its meaning are discussed, and recommendations for future research are offered