Introspective Awareness and Its Predictive Power on Health Anxiety: A Cross-sectional Study

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated widespread health anxiety, affecting populations globally. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between introspective awareness and health anxiety levels. Methods: Employing a cross-sectional design and the convenience sampling method, 350 residents of Richmond Hill, Canada, with an age of 18 and above participated in this study in 2023. Health anxiety was assessed using the health anxiety inventory (HAI), while introspective awareness was measured via the multidimensional assessment of interoceptive awareness (MAIA), encompassing eight subscales. Pearson correlation coefficient and linear regression analysis were used to explore the predictive relationships between introspective awareness components and health anxiety.  Results: The participants exhibited a slight female predominance (53.43%), diverse age distribution, and the majority had post-secondary education (81.43%). Noticing (r=-0.45, P 0.001) and emotional awareness (r=-0.48, P 0.001) demonstrated significant negative correlations with health anxiety, indicating their potential protective roles, while other subscales showed no significant predictive role individually (P 0.05). The regression model revealed that these components significantly predicted health anxiety levels, accounting for approximately 42% of the variance (R2=0.42, F(2, 347)=48.35, P 0.001). Specifically, increases in noticing and emotional awareness were associated with decreases in health anxiety scores (B=-3.45 and B=-4.12, respectively; P 0.001).  Conclusion: Enhancing aspects of introspective awareness, such as noticing and emotional awareness, could be crucial in developing interventions aimed at reducing health anxiety in pandemic conditions and beyond.