ArticleBJPsych open2023
Excessive fear of clusters of holes, its interaction with stressful life events and the association with anxiety and depressive symptoms: large epidemiological study of young people in Hong Kong.
Article in BJPsych open, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Examining the social mechanism linking excessive video gaming and depressive symptoms among adolescents: interplay of friend support and parenting quality.BJPsych open · 2025Article
- The social learning account of trypophobia.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2024Article
- Is trypophobia real?BJPsych open · 2024Article
- Emotional and visual responses to trypophobic images with object, animal, or human body backgrounds: an eye-tracking study.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
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10 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundExcessive and persistent fear of clusters of holes, also known as trypophobia, has been suggested to reflect cortical hyperexcitability and may be associated with mental health risks. No study, however, has yet examined these associations in representative epidemiological samples.
aimsTo examine the prevalence of trypophobia in a population-representative youth sample, its association with mental health and functioning, and its interaction with external stress.
methodA total of 2065 young people were consecutively recruited from a household-based epidemiological youth mental health study in Hong Kong. Trypophobia, symptoms of anxiety, depression and stress, and exposure to personal stressors were assessed. Logistic regression was used to assess the relationships between trypophobia and mental health. Potential additive and interaction effects of trypophobia and high stress exposure on mental health were also tested.
resultsThe prevalence of trypophobia was 17.6%. Trypophobia was significantly associated with severe symptoms of anxiety (odds ratio (OR) = 1.83, 95% CI = 1.32-2.53), depression (OR = 1.78, 95% CI = 1.24-2.56) and stress (OR = 1.68, 95% CI = 1.11-2.53), even when accounting for sociodemographic factors, personal and family psychiatric history, resilience and stress exposure. Dose-response relationships were observed, and trypophobia significantly potentiated the effects of stress exposure on symptom outcomes, particularly for depressive symptoms. Those with trypophobia also showed significantly poorer functioning across domains and poorer health-related quality of life.
conclusionsScreening for trypophobia in young people may facilitate early risk detection and intervention, particularly among those with recent stress exposure. Nevertheless, the generally small effect sizes suggest that other factors have more prominent roles in determining recent mental health outcomes in population-based samples; these should be explored in future work.
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