Zolotareva A.A. Health anxiety and its diagnosis: A psychometric analysis of the Russian version of the Whiteley Index

The Whiteley Index is widely known as an instrument for population and epidemiological studies of health anxiety, clinical work, and clinical studies of hypochondria in patients with mental and somatic disorders. Despite the obvious scientific and clinical significance of the Whiteley Index, it has not yet been adapted for Russian-speaking respondents.

The aim of this study was the adaptation and psychometric analysis of the Russian version of the Whiteley Index (WI).

The psychometric properties of the scale were evaluated on a sample of 1,000 respondents, including 786 women and 214 men aged 18 to 84 years (M = 38.6; Me = 38 years; SD = 13.0), who were subscribers to groups and channels on health, medicine, and psychology on Telegram and VKontakte.

The results confirmed the factor validity, factor invariance, internal reliability, convergent validity, and criterion validity of the Russian version of the Whiteley Index. The scale has a one-factor structure, shows full factor invariance across sex and age, and is reliable due to the high Cronbach’s α coefficients (α = 0.899) and McDonald’s ω coefficients (ω = 0.901). Symptoms of health anxiety were associated with more severe anxiety, depressive, and somatic symptoms, as well as more frequent visits to healthcare organizations.

Thus, an adapted version of the Whiteley Index can be recommended for assessing health anxiety in the general Russian-speaking population. Further psychometric research should focus on validating and standardizing the scale in clinical settings, including determining the possibility of its use in psychological, psychiatric, psychotherapeutic, and general medical practice.

Key words: Whiteley Index, health anxiety, hypochondria, depression, somatization, healthcare organization

For citation: Zolotareva, A.A. (2025). Health anxiety and its diagnosis: A psychometric analysis of the Russian version of the Whiteley Index. New Psychological Research, No. 1, 245–264. DOI: 10.51217/npsyresearch_2025_05_01_11

Acknowledgement

The publication was prepared within the framework of the Academic Fund Program at HSE University (grant № 25-00-033 “Development of psychosomatic research in Russia”).