| Research implicates disgust as an important maintenance factor in blood-injection-injury (BII) phobia. However, there has yet to be any direct experimental evidence demonstrating that disgust causes the maintenance of this disorder, and it is not clear whether targeting disgust in treatment potentiates treatment efficacy. The current study addressed these two gaps by testing the efficacy of a disgust treatment for BII phobia. 45 participants meeting criteria for BII phobia were randomly assigned to either (1) a disgust treatment consisting of 3 sessions of exposure to disgusting, but disorder-irrelevant, stimuli, (2) a non-specific treatment consisting of 3 sessions of watching an emotionally charged video, or (3) a control procedure consisting of 3 sessions of only filling out questionnaires. Both the disgust and non-specific treatments led to reductions on self-report questionnaires relative to the control group. The disgust treatment led to greater reductions in post-treatment emotional responding during behavioral approach tasks relative to both comparison groups. Mediation tests demonstrated that reductions in disgust propensity and disgust sensitivity generally mediated symptom reduction. Theoretical and clinical implications are discussed. |
