nagpur obsession with covid19 leading to frequent checking of temperature or blood oxygen saturation or excessive use of sanitizers may be an indication of illness anxiety disorder iad many extreme cases of such obsession are seeking treatment from government as well as private psychiatrists the number of first time cases is on the rise say doctorsthough confused with obsessive compulsive disorder ocd doctors prefer to describe it as iad in which people exhibit short lived symptomsamong the complaints psychiatrists are getting from relatives include repeated checking of body temperature and blood oxygen saturation spo2 level and excessive use of hand sanitizers in some cases patients start believing they have been infected by the novel coronavirus even if their body temperature is 99 some are getting expensive investigations like cat scans or insisting on hospital admission for even mild symptoms which are not remotely linked to covid19iggmch psychiatry professor dr abhishek somani said the most common type of obsessive compulsive phenomenon like washing hands frequently and excessive attention to personal hygiene has been accepted as healthy and preventive towards corona rather than abnormal there is no change in number of such people seeking treatment but certainly more people are reporting obsessive anxiety of having corona there is increase in number of patients who complain they are unable to leave corona thoughts behind due to excessive talk and media coverage he saiddr praveen navkhare senior psychiatrist at regional mental hospital said the behaviour of patients may be close to ocd what we are seeing among patients is best explained as iad he saidthis disorder basically is a result of mainly four types of thinkingstyle errors magnification minimization tunnelvision and mental filtering can be linked to anxiety disorder said navkharein magnification a patient tends to magnify even mildest common symptoms and believes he is suffering from a particular disease today patients remain highly anxious till covid report comes dr navkhare saidminimization refers to downplaying and believing no such disease exists in tunnelvision the patients ideas about reality are based on limited information which may not be exactin mental filtering the patient focuses only on specific information and negates other relevant information he could negate information about recoveries but selectively focus on death said dr navkharedr somani who is also president of psychiatric society nagpur said they help patients overcome their condition by explaining covid is fatal in very few cases a proper explanation helps them understand the disease he said dr somani added more men have reported the problem than womendr sonakshi jyrwa of aiims nagpur said infodemic from media coverage and fear of growing pandemic crisis are breeding ground for apprehension fear and anxiety we have seen a surge in depression and anxietyrelated disorders she saidpsychiatrist dr avinash joshi who runs a private clinic said the pandemic has only increased problems for ocd patients it is manifested in their behaviour movement and sleep pattern in common people i would say it is obsessive concern resulting in loss of interest in work depressing