Heart-focused and general illness fears in relation to parental medical history and separation experiences

Disease fears, such as excessive heart-focused anxiety (HFA), are quite common, and yet their origin is only poorly understood. Explanatory models of HFA have emphasized observational learning, parental cardiac disease, and the effects of separation experiences as key ethological factors. The purpose of this study was: (a) to provide descriptive information on the prevalence of HFA in an unselect sample of younger adults; and (b) to investigate the relation of HFA and general illness fears to parental medical history and different types of separation experiences. 421 undergraduate students completed the Cardiac Anxiety Questionnaire (CAQ), Illness Attitude Scales, Parental Medical History Questionnaire, and Separation Anxiety and Experiences Questionnaire. Approximately 2–3% of our sample reported excessive HFA, and both illness attitudes and parental cardiac disease predicted 23% of total CAQ variance. Subjects with high CAQ scores reported more parental cardiac and other medical problems than low HFA subjects. Although high and low HFA subjects did not differ in terms of number of personal intimate relationships that ended in separation, subjects with separated parents reported more HFA than persons with nonseparated parents. We discuss the relevance of these findings for our understanding of HFA.