The association between health anxiety and disgust reactions in a contamination-based behavioral approach task

Abstract

Existing evidence suggests that disgust is an important affective process related to health anxiety. The present study sought to determine the contribution of health anxiety symptoms in the prediction of disgust and behavioral avoidance in a large, nonclinical sample (N=156). Regression analyses showed that overall health anxiety symptoms predicted disgust on a behavioral approach task independent of gender, negative affect, and fear of contamination. Particularly, health anxiety-related reassurance seeking was found to be uniquely associated with disgust and behavioral avoidance after controlling for the aforementioned covariates. In addition, the interaction between health anxiety and contamination fear was tested, and remained significant when controlling for gender and negative affect. These results suggest that heightened contamination fear is associated with elevated disgust reactions such that high levels of health anxiety leads even those low in contamination fear to be disgusted during a behavioral task. These results are in line with previous research on the role of disgust in health anxiety.

Ways in which healthcare interior environments are associated with perceived safety against infectious diseases and coping behaviours

“…perceived vulnerability) on the association. These results are in accordance with previous research regarding contamination-related anxiety and avoidance [27], as well as the role of individual differences [26,39]. Avoidance was strongly associated with perceived contamination as well as health anxiety, particularly estimated likelihood of having an illness [27].…”

“…feet, elbows, back) to open doors, and frequently disinfecting their hands or environmental surfaces [23]. Previous, but very limited, studies have investigated how personal belief [24,25], disgust propensity [26] and health anxiety [27] are related to avoidance tasks.…”

OCD: obsessive–compulsive … disgust? The role of

“…One such proposed strategy involves differentially using behavioural and cognitive strategies for patients who score high in DP and DS, respectively, to reduce heightened disgust reactions and the negative emotions related to dis gust. 36 As well, Ludvik and colleagues 37 have suggested using counterconditioning and revaluation techniques, whereby conditioned and unconditioned stimuli, respect ively, are paired with unconditioned stimuli of the opposite valence. However, the efficacy of these strategies has not been evaluated in OCD populations.…”

Self-Regulation of Anterior Insula with Real-Time fMRI and Its Behavioral Effects in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Feasibility Study

“…Recent evidence suggest that OCD involving contamination obsessions and washing compulsions might be characterized by a disorder in disgust processing. Hyperactivity in the insula may play a particularly important role in mediating such putative disruptions [ 24 , 25 , 35 ]. In light of these findings, we designed a pilot study to explore the effects of rtfMRI-neurofeedback based anterior insula down-regulation on several behavioral, physiological and clinical measures of OCD patients with contamination fears and washing compulsions.…”

“…First, disgust is strongly associated with the fear of contamination and subsequent washing compulsions [ 4 , 23 , 24 ]. Furthermore, heightened disgust feelings towards disgust-inducing stimuli, and greater behavioral avoidance from disgusting objects, situations and places are commonly observed in OCD patients, especially those with contamination fears and washing compulsions [ 25 – 35 ]. On the other hand, findings from functional neuroimaging studies have indicated that when subjects are presented disgust inducing stimuli, the insula is highly activated in persons with OCD, especially in the group of patients with contamination fears [ 32 , 36 , 37 ].…”