Somatic symptom disorder and illness anxiety disorder

What it is

Somatic symptom disorder is the diagnosis when physical symptoms are present and the thoughts and feelings about them are out of proportion. If the patient is preoccupied with being sick or contracting a disease without having physical symptoms, the diagnosis is illness anxiety disorder and not somatic symptoms disorder. The older naming is given differently in one source and another: somatic symptom disorder is written as the term that replaced hypochondriasis in DSM 5 in one, and as the former somatization disorder in another. Somatoform disorders are those in which the patients have no conscious control over their unexplained somatic symptoms, and the five types are somatization disorder, conversion disorder, hypochondriasis, body dysmorphic disorder and pain disorder.

Two terms stand beside these and are not the same thing. Hypochondriasis is persistent non-delusional preoccupations about physical symptoms that may be misinterpreted as a serious medical condition, and it affects males and females equally. Malingering is an intentional pretense of illness to obtain personal gain.