A Preliminary Investigation of the Efficacy of Disgust Exposure Techniques in a Subclinical Population With Blood and Injection Fears

Abstract

The current study examined whether a traditional exposure-based treatment for blood-injection-injury (BII) phobia would be effective at reducing disgust responses to BII stimuli and whether the addition of modules targeting disgust would provide incremental efficacy. Participants, many of whom reported subclinical BII phobia symptoms, underwent one of two single-session exposure protocols, one targeting fear alone, and the other targeting both fear and disgust. Both treatments consisted of education components (fear-only or fear-disgust) and in vivo exposure (fear-only or fear-disgust). Both the fear-only and the fear-disgust treatment groups significantly decreased fear and avoidance behaviour toward BII stimuli over time. The two groups also experienced similar reductions in disgust responses to BII-related stimuli and global as well as domain-specific disgust sensitivity. The effect sizes indicated that the fear-disgust group evidenced greater reduction in symptoms than did the fear-only group. The implications of the results for models of phobia maintenance and treatment are discussed.