Background: Irrational health anxiety increases due to insufficient information about COVID-19 and misinterpretation of allergy symptoms in favor of COVID-19. The disease increases the caregiver burden in informal caregivers and, subsequently, causes physical and mental disorders for them and negatively affects the provision of care for patients. Objectives: This study aimed to examine the relationship between health anxiety and caregiver burden in informal caregivers of patients with COVID-19. Methods: In this cross-sectional and correlational study, the convenient sampling method was adopted to select 340 informal caregivers of patients with COVID-19 who were discharged during the last three weeks of hospitalization in Vasei Hospital of Sabzevar City, Iran, in 2021. To collect the required data, the online links of the demographic information questionnaire, Salkoviskis's short health anxiety inventory (SHAI), and Novak and Guest's Caregiver Burden Inventory (CBI) were sent to the subjects through messengers. The data were analyzed using SPSS 22 as well as descriptive and analytical statistics. Results: According to the results, the mean caregiver burden score in informal caregivers of patients with COVID-19 was 69.72 ± 14.91, and the mean health anxiety score was 16.22 ± 8.24. Pearson's test results were indicative of a significant relationship between caregiver burden and health anxiety (P < 0.001). Conclusions: Since a significant relationship was found between health anxiety and caregiver burden in informal caregivers of patients with COVID-19 in this study, it was argued that the health of informal caregivers was an important health issue certainly deserving serious attention of the health service providers.

Background: Informal caregivers of COVID-19 patients, who are in direct contact with patients and the virus, experience many psychological issues and are prone to Illness Anxiety Disorder (IAD). Accordingly, this study aims to determine the effects of virtual training of the Benson Relaxation Technique (BRT) on IAD in the informal caregivers of COVID-19 patients. Methods: This randomized clinical trial study was conducted on 54 informal caregivers of COVID-19 patients who scored X ≥20 on the health anxiety inventory (HAI) by Salkovskis. They were randomly divided into control (n=28) and intervention (n=26) groups. The intervention group received the BRT audio file and pamphlet through messengers, and applied this technique twice a day, each for 20 min, for 3 weeks. However, the control group did not receive any training. Subsequently, after 3 weeks, HAI was completed by both groups again. Data analysis was done using SPSS software, version 22. Results: The mean score of IAD in the informal caregivers of the patients before the intervention in the experimental and the control groups was 24.88±5.89 and 23.27±5.64, respectively. After the intervention, the mean score of the IAD in the informal caregivers of the patients in the intervention and the control groups changed to 17.30±7.15 and 19.78±7.14, respectively. The result of the t-test showed a significant difference between the changes in the IAD scores of the two groups after the implementation of the intervention (P=0.046). Conclusion: The findings show that the virtual training of BRT, as a comprehensive, simple, and inexpensive method, reduces IAD in the informal caregivers of COVID-19 patients. The healthcare systems can take steps to support these people who are exposed to IAD by providing virtual training of BRT to informal caregivers of COVID-19 patients.