Dawaa Reference

Clinical reference

Fear or concern about having a disease

Treatment options, dosing, cautions and Egyptian brands from the shipped Dawaa Reference card.

Evidence status

Checked against the sources named below

Sources3 sources

ICPC-3 (WONCA International Classification of Primary Care, 3rd edition) class AS90 - condition scope only, no dose · Illness Anxiety Disorder - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf (NBK554399) - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK554399/ · No dose - referral pathway, no medicine given in primary care

Verified against1 document
  • No dose - referral pathway, no medicine given in primary care

Verified date2026-08

Presentation reference

Is it this?

Reference only, to read alongside your own examination.

Symptoms — what the patient reports (10)

  • These patients come first to primary care rather than to mental health services
  • Dread of a serious underlying illness persists through normal examination, normal tests and repeated reassurance
  • Bodily symptoms are usually absent, and mild when they do occur
  • Where a real illness exists, the worry is plainly out of proportion to how severe it is [anxiety]
  • Negative results fail to satisfy, and several doctors are consulted for the same problem
  • They believe earlier doctors were careless and overlooked a grave illness with dire consequences
  • They inspect themselves again and again for skin lesions, hair loss or bodily change [hair loss · skin lesions]
  • Dwelling on death and disability, with work and social life markedly impaired
  • One pattern seeks care: heavy use of services, switching doctor, demanding more tests
  • The other pattern avoids care, fearing a doctor or a test will uncover a fatal disease

Tests (10)

  • This is a diagnosis of exclusion: examine fully and test to the symptoms before settling on it
  • Criterion: excessive worry over having or acquiring a crippling or fatal illness
  • Criterion: no bodily symptoms, or only mildly distressing ones
  • Criterion: with a real illness, or family-history risk of one, the anxiety is still excessive
  • Criterion: out-of-proportion health behaviour, such as checking the body over and over
  • Criterion: the picture has run at least 6 months
  • Criterion: no other psychiatric condition explains the preoccupation better
  • A structured interview separates it from somatic symptom disorder and from healthy people
  • That interview is slow and laborious, so in practice it stays a research instrument
  • Carrying a genuine medical disease does not rule this out, as the two can coexist

If not this — what else fits (11)

  • Exclude general medical disease first, then weigh somatic symptom, obsessive-compulsive, generalised anxiety and body dysmorphic disorders
  • Somatic symptom disorder carries many lasting bodily symptoms with dread about them
  • The separation: here bodily symptoms stay minimal and the belief of being diseased dominates
  • In obsessive-compulsive disorder the acts are ritualised and stereotyped, and the worries span several themes
  • Here the worry stays on health alone and does not reach other areas of living
  • Generalised anxiety disorder frets over nearly everything, tense, keyed up and on edge
  • Anxiety here is health-specific, where generalised anxiety runs to social, romantic and work matters
  • Body dysmorphic disorder fixes on appearance flaws that others barely notice
  • Those patients fear being ugly, not being ill
  • Conversion disorder, delusional disorder, or depression
  • A personality disorder, or schizophrenia

SourceStatPearls "Illness Anxiety Disorder" - disease-level clinical article

Presentation findings are traced to the source above.

1

NO DRUG THERAPY IN PRIMARY CARE (REFERRAL & ADVICE)

1st line
Adult dose and duration

A common presenting complaint reflecting patient anxiety rather than a disease itself; the GP's role is reassurance, appropriate targeted testing, and referral to mental health if health anxiety is persistent or disabling - a diagnosed anxiety disorder would be coded and treated separately. - Refer, with advice

Paediatric dose

Children follow the same pathway: recognise and refer. No primary-care medicine is implied.

Dose source

No dose - referral pathway, no medicine given in primary care

Why

A common presenting complaint reflecting patient anxiety rather than a disease itself; the GP's role is reassurance, appropriate targeted testing, and referral to mental health if health anxiety is persistent or disabling - a diagnosed anxiety disorder would be coded and treated separately.

Cautions
  • No medicine is prescribed for this in primary care - this entry is for recognition and referral. Anything given is decided by the service it is referred to.
  • RED FLAG - Genuine physical symptoms being dismissed as just anxiety, functional impairment from the fear itself, suicidal ideation, or escalating reassurance-seeking despite negative work-up.

Prices are indicative (dataset snapshot 2026-06); verify with the pharmacy.