How does attachment style impact health anxiety in COPD Patients

People living with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) frequently experience high levels of anxiety, including health-focused anxiety related to symptom monitoring, disease progression, and healthcare use. Attachment theory provides a useful framework for understanding individual differences in responses to illness, suggesting that insecure attachment styles may be associated with heightened health anxiety through maladaptive emotional and interpersonal processes. This study aims to examine whether adult attachment style (attachment anxiety and attachment avoidance) is associated with health anxiety in individuals with COPD. It also seeks to investigate whether emotion regulation difficulties and social connectedness help explain (mediate) this relationship, and whether social connectedness may buffer or exacerbate (moderate) the association between attachment insecurity and health anxiety. Using a cross-sectional, quantitative design, adults with a clinical diagnosis of COPD will complete validated self-report measures of attachment style, health anxiety, emotion regulation, social support, and COPD symptom impact. The findings are intended to inform psychologically informed approaches to COPD care by identifying potentially modifiable psychosocial mechanisms linked to health anxiety.