Illness-related intrusive thoughts and illness anxiety disorder.

Provides support for the cognitive explanatory model of IAD and its usefulness in clinical practice. Indicates that the way people interpret and react to naturally occurring intrusive thoughts about illness seems to be a vulnerability marker for developing an illness anxiety disorder. Emphasizes that the meaning that patients with IAD ascribe to their intrusive thoughts about illnesses must be a main target in the cognitive-behavioral treatment of IAD. Suggests that the importance of intrusive thoughts in IAD does not lie in the frequency with which they are experienced, but in the way, they are appraised/interpreted, which is what determines whether they become a clinically significant symptom. Indicates that the relationship between illness intrusive thoughts and IAD symptoms in non-clinical individuals is based on: overestimating the negative consequences of experiencing an illness intrusive thought; and the appraisal that having such a thought would increase its likelihood of coming true. Shows that the frequency of illness-related intrusive cognitions is associated with worse cognitive and behavioral consequences.