The role of cognitions, trait anxiety and disgust sensitivity in generating faintness around blood–injury phobic stimuli

Abstract

The effects on blood–injury fear and fainting of scripts concerning pain, nausea, and anger and individual differences in trait anxiety and disgust sensitivity were investigated. Eighteen participants were high in disgust sensitivity and trait anxiety, 11 were low in disgust sensitivity but high in trait anxiety, 10 were high in disgust sensitivity but low in trait anxiety, and 16 were low in disgust sensitivity and trait anxiety. Participants were exposed to pain, nausea, and anger scripts during presentation of blood–injury slides. The ability of the scripts to increase symptoms of fear and faintness, on a state version of the Blood–Injection Symptom Scale (BISS; Page, A. C., Bennett, K. S., Carter, O., Smith, J., & Woodmore, K. (1997). Blood–Injection Symptom Scale (BISS): Assessing the structure of phobic symptomatology elicited by blood and injections. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 35, 457–464) were examined. Analyses indicated that individual differences in trait anxiety and disgust sensitivity interact to generate symptoms of faintness when the pain script was read. That is, disgust sensitive and trait anxious participants reported greater faintness relative to other conditions. The implications for theory and treatment of blood–injury–injection phobia are discussed.