Department of Psychology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1300 University Blvd., Room 415, Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
School of Nursing, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1720 2nd Ave S., Birmingham, AL 35294, USA.
J Anxiety Disord. 2017 Oct;51:65-71. doi: 10.1016/j.janxdis.2017.03.002. Epub 2017 Mar 16.
Fear of blood, injections, and needles commonly prevents or delays individuals' receipt of health care, such as vaccines or blood draws. Innovative methods are needed to overcome these fears and reduce anxiety related to activities of this nature. The present study describes initial testing of an arm illusion paradigm that may prove useful during early phases of graded exposure for people with blood and needle fear. Seventy-four undergraduate students aged 18-29 years were tested. In line with study aims, results indicated that the virtual blood draw paradigm promoted strong perceptions of arm ownership and elicited significant changes in physiological indices (blood pressure, heart rate, electrodermal activity, respiratory rate) in response to key procedure elements (e.g., needle insertion). Further, bivariate correlations indicated that individual differences in self-reported blood and needle fear collected prior to the illusion paradigm were significantly associated with presyncopal symptoms reported following the procedure. In regression analyses, self-reported measures of blood and needle fear explained unique variance in presyncopal symptoms even after controlling for general state anxiety. These findings provide initial support for the virtual blood draw paradigm as a promising tool to help provide graded exposure to medical procedures involving needles and blood draw.
对血液、注射和针头的恐惧通常会阻止或延迟个人接受医疗保健，例如疫苗接种或血液采集。需要创新的方法来克服这些恐惧，并减轻与这种性质的活动相关的焦虑。本研究描述了手臂错觉范式的初步测试，该范式可能在针对有血液和针头恐惧的人的分级暴露的早期阶段证明有用。74 名年龄在 18-29 岁的本科生接受了测试。符合研究目的的结果表明，虚拟采血范式促进了手臂所有权的强烈感知，并在关键程序元素（例如，针插入）的响应中引起了生理指标（血压、心率、皮肤电活动、呼吸率）的显著变化。此外，双变量相关性表明，在错觉范式之前收集的自我报告的血液和针头恐惧与程序后报告的晕厥前症状显著相关。在回归分析中，即使在控制一般状态焦虑后，自我报告的血液和针头恐惧测量值仍解释了晕厥前症状的独特差异。这些发现为虚拟采血范式作为一种有前途的工具提供了初步支持，可帮助提供涉及针头和采血的医疗程序的分级暴露。
