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Creating a Computerized Instrument for the Assessment of Blood-Injury-Injection Phobia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2019

Antonio Ruiz-García Open the ORCID record for Antonio Ruiz-García [Opens in a new window] ,
Luis Valero-Aguayo  and
Félix Hurtado-Melero
Antonio Ruiz-García*
Affiliation:
Universidad de Málaga (Spain)
Luis Valero-Aguayo
Affiliation:
Universidad de Málaga (Spain)
Félix Hurtado-Melero
Affiliation:
Servicio Andaluz de Salud (Spain)
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Antonio Ruiz García. Servicio de Atención Psicológica de la Universidad de Málaga. Campus Teatinos, 29071 Málaga (Spain). E-mail: antoniorg@uma.es Telephone: +34–952132417.
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Abstract

A new computerized instrument (the Multimedia Behavioral Avoidance Test, or MBAT) for blood-injury-injection phobia (BII) assessment is presented. Analogous stimuli such as images and videos can also elicit anxiety responses; thus, they can be used for the assessment of phobia. The MBAT was applied to participants via computer, and subjective anxiety responses and time latency were recorded. The MBAT was composed of 30 original images and 30 videos related to blood, injury and injections. The MBAT was compared with other pencil-and-paper questionnaires for BII phobia, and heart rate was also measured with a pulsioximeter. The participants included 160 students and professionals (34.5% males, 65.6% females; mean 28.6 years old). The results showed a high reliability for internal consistency in images and videos (α = .98 both), with a single factor that groups all the items. In addition, the MBAT had high concurrent validity (r = .78 to .85) with the different anxiety scales compared. The MBAT diagnosed 12 participants with possible BII phobia. It is a useful instrument in the assessment of this kind of phobia because it is easier and quicker than pencil-and-paper questionnaires, it uses more objective measurements, and it is useful in planning subsequent exposure with images and videos.

Keywords

Behavioral Avoidance Testblood-injury-injection phobiacomputerized instrumentmultimedia
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 22 , 2019 , E44
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2019 

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Footnotes

How to cite this article:

Ruiz-García, A., Valero-Aguayo, L., & Hurtado-Melero, F. (2019). Creating a computerized instrument for the assessment of blood-injury-injection phobia. The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 22. e44. Doi:10.1017/sjp.2019.38

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