Health Anxiety Test (Hypochondria): Measure Your Worry About Illness
This health anxiety test screens for illness worry, body-checking, and reassurance-seeking. Informed by the Short Health Anxiety Inventory, it provides an instant result without diagnosing a condition.
Reviewed by Michael Callans, MSW 
Health Anxiety Test (Hypochondria) is a free, confidential 14-question self-assessment, informed by the validated SHAI. It takes about 9 minutes, runs entirely in your browser, and gives you a plain-language score across 3 interpretation bands plus an optional in-depth report. It is an educational screening, not a diagnosis.
What health anxiety actually looks like
Health anxiety is not just worrying about being sick. The SHAI captures the whole pattern: how preoccupied you are, how you read body signals, and the checking and reassurance habits that keep the worry alive.
Worry and preoccupation
How much of your attention illness fears take up, how often you notice aches and sensations, how hard the worry is to push aside once it starts, and whether it has started to interfere with work or daily life.
Catastrophic interpretation
The tendency to read ordinary body sensations as signs of serious disease, to assume the worst rather than the likeliest explanation, and to stay unconvinced even after a doctor says you are healthy.
Checking and reassurance
The behaviors that bring brief relief but feed the cycle: body-checking, searching symptoms online, and repeatedly seeking reassurance from doctors or loved ones that fades quickly once it is given.
| Feature | Typical free quiz | Psychology.com |
|---|---|---|
| Based on the validated SHAI | Sometimes | Yes, faithful to the structure |
| Covers checking and reassurance | Often missed | Yes, the maintaining behaviors |
| Catastrophic interpretation | Rarely | Yes, its own focus |
| Plain-language interpretation | Rarely | Yes, for every band |
| Clinician-reviewed | Rarely | Yes, reviewed |
| Optional in-depth personalized report | No | Yes, written to your exact scores |
| Confidential (no data sent) | Often tracked | Runs in your browser |
How scoring works
Answers are scored 0–42 in total. Your result falls into one of 3 bands:
| Score | Band | What it suggests |
|---|---|---|
| 0–13 | Low health anxiety | Your answers point to low health anxiety. Worry about your health does not seem to be a significant burden right now. |
| 14–27 | Moderate health anxiety | Your answers point to moderate health anxiety. Health worry is showing up enough to be worth addressing. |
| 28–42 | High health anxiety | Your answers point to high health anxiety. The worry seems to be taking a real toll, and support is genuinely worth it. |
How the health anxiety score is calculated
The Health Anxiety Test summarizes self-reported illness worry and related habits. This test asks 14 statements adapted from the Short Health Anxiety Inventory, each scored from 0 (not at all true) to 3 (very true), for a possible total of 0 to 42. The statements group into three areas: worry and preoccupation (6 statements, up to 18 points), catastrophic interpretation of body sensations (4 statements, up to 12 points), and checking and reassurance-seeking behavior (4 statements, up to 12 points).
Your total places you into one of three descriptive bands: low, moderate, or high health anxiety. These bands are set for this self-assessment and are not the official SHAI clinical cutoffs described by Salkovskis and colleagues, so treat them as a general indicator rather than a diagnostic threshold.
The category breakdown is an editorial organization of this adapted questionnaire. It should not be interpreted as the published SHAI subscale structure. Your score describes your answers about worry; it cannot tell whether a physical symptom is harmless or whether medical testing is needed. A low result also does not rule out an illness or remove the need for recommended care.
Health anxiety vs generalized anxiety disorder
Health anxiety and generalized anxiety disorder can look similar because both involve persistent, hard-to-control worry. The difference is where the worry lands. Health anxiety focuses specifically on the fear of having or developing a serious illness, along with body-checking and reassurance-seeking about that fear. Generalized anxiety disorder spreads across many areas of life, such as work, relationships, and finances, without a single focus. Some people experience both. If your worry ranges well beyond health topics, the Anxiety Test may capture that broader pattern more directly, while this health anxiety test stays focused on illness-related fear.
If your checking and repeating behaviors feel driven by intrusive, unwanted thoughts rather than by fear of illness specifically, the OCD Test may describe your experience better. And if sudden waves of intense physical fear are part of the picture, it can also be worth taking the Panic Disorder Test.
Signs it may be time to talk to a professional
A few signs suggest health anxiety has reached a point where professional support would help: the worry repeatedly interrupts your day, you have sought reassurance from multiple doctors about the same concern, you avoid medical care entirely out of fear of what might be found, or the anxiety is straining your relationships or work. None of these signs mean anything is wrong with you. They mean the pattern has grown large enough that outside help can make a real difference.
A therapist who specializes in health anxiety or OCD-related conditions, findable through the Psychology.com therapist directory, can help you work through it with cognitive behavioral therapy, often using tools like Cognitive Restructuring to reinterpret body sensations and gradually reduce checking behaviors.
Health anxiety after a real diagnosis or health scare
Health anxiety can develop or become stronger after a real health event: a diagnosis, a frightening test result, or a serious illness in someone close to you. The original Health Anxiety Inventory was designed to assess health anxiety across different physical health states. Its questions about negative consequences concern how people imagine illness would affect them; they are not reserved for people with a diagnosis. This website uses an educational adaptation, so a clinician familiar with your medical history is better placed to interpret illness-related fear in the context of your actual care needs.
It is genuinely hard to tell where reasonable vigilance after a real diagnosis ends and health anxiety begins, and that line is not a failure to draw correctly on your own. A useful marker is whether the worry keeps growing even as your medical team offers reassurance and clear results, rather than settling once you have the facts. If that sounds familiar, ask your care team for a referral to a therapist who works with medical anxiety specifically, since standard CBT techniques for health anxiety are adapted somewhat for people managing a real ongoing condition.
Agree with your medical team on which changes need review and how to follow your existing care plan. Work on repetitive reassurance-seeking alongside appropriate medical care. Do not use a health anxiety score as a reason to dismiss a new concern or to stop monitoring that your clinician has recommended.
Can taking a health anxiety test become reassurance-seeking?
Notice what you hope another result will settle. If you repeatedly retake the questionnaire to feel certain that you are safe, consider pausing and discussing that pattern with a clinician. This self-assessment cannot provide medical reassurance. Use it to describe worries and habits, then choose a practical next step instead of trying to obtain a result that removes uncertainty.
You might note what triggered a search or checking urge, what you did, and how long any relief lasted, without adding a detailed symptom-monitoring routine. The Anxiety Cycle tool can help organize that pattern. The Psychology.com tests hub offers related self-assessments, but completing more screens is optional and cannot establish whether you are physically well.
Methodology & sources
This test is informed by the Short Health Anxiety Inventory (SHAI), developed and validated by Salkovskis and colleagues (2002). The SHAI measures health anxiety independent of actual physical health, covering worry about illness, awareness of body sensations, the tendency to interpret them catastrophically, and the difficulty of being reassured. Each SHAI item presents a set of statements rated by how true they are; for readability we adapt the dimensions into statements rated from 0 (not at all true) to 3 (very true), giving a total from 0 to 42. This is an educational adaptation rather than the exact scored SHAI, so the bands are descriptive rather than official diagnostic cutoffs.
This test is provided for education and self-reflection. It is not a diagnosis. Health anxiety, sometimes called hypochondria or illness anxiety disorder, exists on a spectrum, and some health vigilance is sensible and adaptive. Only a licensed clinician can assess whether worry about illness has reached the level of a disorder. If your result concerns you, treat it as a prompt to reach out, not as a label.
The original SHAI includes 18 items, with questions about illness likelihood and the anticipated negative consequences of being seriously ill (Salkovskis et al., 2002). The consequences questions are not a separate screening reserved for people who already have an illness. Abramowitz and colleagues (2007) examined the SHAI in a non-clinical sample and found support for its reliability and construct validity. That evidence concerns the published instrument and does not validate the modified statements, editorial categories, or descriptive bands on this page.
References
- Salkovskis PM, Rimes KA, Warwick HMC, Clark DM. The Health Anxiety Inventory: development and validation of scales for the measurement of health anxiety and hypochondriasis. Psychol Med. 2002;32(5):843-853.
- Abramowitz JS, Deacon BJ, Valentiner DP. The Short Health Anxiety Inventory: psychometric properties and construct validity in a non-clinical sample. Cognit Ther Res. 2007;31(6):871-883. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7088052/
- American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5). Arlington, VA: APA; 2013.
- National Health Service. Health anxiety. nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/health-anxiety/
Cite this source
Psychology.com. (2026, September 16). Health Anxiety Test (Hypochondria). Psychology.com. https://psychology.com/tests/health-anxiety
Health Anxiety Test (Hypochondria) FAQ
What is a health anxiety test?
It is a short, research-informed screening that measures how much you worry about having or developing a serious illness, including the body-checking and reassurance habits that keep the worry going. It is informed by the validated Short Health Anxiety Inventory and produces a descriptive result, not a diagnosis.
Is health anxiety the same as hypochondria?
They overlap. Hypochondria is an older everyday word for intense worry about being seriously ill. In current clinical language this falls under illness anxiety disorder or somatic symptom disorder. The underlying experience, persistent fear about your health, is what this test looks at.
How is health anxiety different from sensible health awareness?
Caring about your health and getting regular check-ups is healthy. Health anxiety is when the worry becomes excessive and persistent, takes up a lot of mental space, drives repeated checking or reassurance, and continues even after a doctor finds nothing wrong. The line is about distress and interference, not about caring.
Is this test a diagnosis?
No. It is for education and self-reflection only. Only a licensed clinician can assess illness anxiety disorder or any related condition, usually by talking with you about your symptoms, history, and life context. If your results concern you, consider reaching out to a therapist.
Can health anxiety get better?
Health anxiety can improve, and cognitive behavioral therapy is a treatment option to discuss with a qualified clinician. It can address frightening interpretations and repeated checking or reassurance-seeking while preserving appropriate medical care. Progress varies, and this screening cannot predict your response to treatment. If worry is disrupting daily life or self-help is not helping, seek an assessment rather than waiting for a particular score.
How many questions is the health anxiety test?
This screening has 14 statements informed by the Short Health Anxiety Inventory. They cover worry and preoccupation, catastrophic interpretations of body sensations, and checking or reassurance-seeking. Take enough time to answer from your usual experience. The website uses adapted statements and descriptive scoring, so completing it is different from receiving the published SHAI in a clinical assessment. The result cannot determine whether physical symptoms need investigation.
Can health anxiety develop after a real illness or diagnosis?
Yes. Health anxiety can appear or intensify after a genuine medical event, including a diagnosis, surgery, or a frightening test result. Having a real illness does not make your distress less deserving of support. The original Health Anxiety Inventory was designed to assess worry across physical health states, but this adapted screening cannot judge whether your concern is proportionate to your medical situation. Discuss your result with someone who understands your history and current care plan.
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