Health anxiety and patient behavior

Botond Koszegi*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

Economic models of patient decision-making emphasize the costs of getting medical attention and the improved physical health that results from it. This note builds a model of patient decision-making when fears or anxiety about the future - captured as beliefs about next period's state of health - also enter the patient's utility function. Anxiety can lead the patient to avoid doctor's visits or other easily available information about her health. However, this avoidance cannot take any form: she will never avoid the doctor with small problems, and under regularity conditions she will never go to a bad doctor to limit the information received.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1073-1084
Number of pages12
JournalJournal of Health Economics
Volume22
Issue number6
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2003
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Behavior
  • Economic model
  • Health anxiety

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