One in seven patients attending hospital clinics is secretly struggling with crippling health anxiety—and most are never diagnosed or treated. This trial tests whether a short course of cognitive behavioural therapy, delivered by regular clinic staff trained on the job, can break that cycle. Health anxiety drives patients to seek repeated, unnecessary tests and appointments, burdening both the individual and the health service. Current care rarely spots the problem, let alone treats it. The CHAMP study asks whether a practical, scalable therapy—given by staff already working in medical clinics—can reduce that anxiety and the associated costs. If the therapy works, it could transform how the NHS handles a hidden driver of over-investigation and clinic attendance. Patients would gain better quality of life, social function, and occupational performance, while the health service could redirect resources from unnecessary procedures to genuine need. The trial tracks costs in both primary and secondary care to see whether savings offset the treatment’s expense.
View original technical description
Significant health anxiety (hypochondriasis) affects about 1 in 7 attenders at general medical clinics and is a major source of morbidity as well as an additional burden on the health service because of the unnecessary investigations that are often performed in such patients. This condition is rarely detected or treated in conventional care. There is a successful treatment, cognitive behaviour therapy adapted for health anxiety, shown to be of value in small trials and which also suggests that it reduces clinic attendance subsequently. The CHAMP study investigates whether this treatment given by trained staff seconded from their ordinary work in medical clinics, supported by colleagues with expertise in the treatment, not only reduces health anxiety and associated symptoms, but also improves social function, occupational performance and quality of life, and offsets the cost of treatment by saving on unnecessary medical investigations and appointments subsequently. This is to be done using a randomized controlled trial design in which patients with significant health anxiety (hypochondriasis) attending medical clinics in four centres will be allocated randomly to 5-10 sessions of cognitive behaviour therapy, backed up by a booklet on this treatment for health anxiety, or to a single explanatory interview about health anxiety. The aim is to recruit about 465 patients in four centres over a fifteen month period in repiratory medicine, cardiology, endocrinology and gastroenterology clinics. Patients will be seen by research assistants masked to knowledge of treatment allocation after 6, 12 and 24 months to complete ratings of clinical progress, and full information will be obtained on health service costs in both primary and secondary care over this time period as well. It is hypothesised that not only will symptoms and functioning will improved but also that there will be reduced costs in the active treatment arm after two years.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know