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.