A behavioral test of contamination fear in excessive health anxiety

Health anxiety is characterized by a preoccupation with the possibility of having a serious health condition or disease. Contemporary conceptualizations of health anxiety have improved in recent years to incorporate a fear of acquiring an illness; however, there is limited experimental data demonstrating the presence of fear of contamination among health anxious individuals.

The present study utilized behavior approach tasks (BATs) to examine the degree to which contamination fear is present in elevated health anxiety. Participants were 60 undergraduate students who reported elevated health anxiety, contamination fear, or no anxiety about either health or contamination. Participants completed four BATS from which avoidance, anxiety, and disgust ratings were derived.

Health anxious and contamination fearful individuals exhibited a similar degree of avoidance during the BATs. Contamination fearful participants reported significantly more anxiety and disgust relative to the non-anxious controls, but not the health anxious participants. Health anxious participants did not report more anxiety or disgust than the non-anxious participants.

The use of an analogue sample may limit the extension of these findings to clinical populations. Additionally, the role of general negative affect could not be reliably determined in the absence of an anxious control group.

These findings suggest that contamination fear may be a source of conceptual overlap between health anxiety and other disorders characterized by contamination fear. This highlights the importance of considering contamination fear in excessive health anxiety.