Lisa Gardner

Publication Date

8-2007

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Phil Pegg, Rick Grieve, Pitt Derryberry

Comments

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Degree Program

Department of Psychology

Degree Type

Master of Arts

Abstract

The National Institute of Mental Health states that roughly 18% of Americans suffer from an anxiety disorder in their lifetime. Medical anxiety is defined as the tendency to have fears regarding medical treatments and examination, and medical settings in general (van Balen & Verdurmen, 1999).

The purpose of this study is to establish the internal consistency and construct validity of a newly created measure of healthcare-context related anxiety, the Medical Anxieties Scale; and to determine how this measure correlates to other, better researched measures of various types of anxiety.

Participants were 276 college-aged students from a southeastern university. The participants completed a demographics questionnaire, the Beck Anxiety Inventory, the Sate-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the General Medical Anxiety Index, the Medical Avoidance Survey, the Medical Fear Survey, the Blood Injection Symptom Scale, the Body Sensations Questionnaire, the Dental Fear Survey, and the Medical Anxieties Scale.

Results supported the hypotheses that the Medical Anxieties Scale would be a reliable measure to assess various types of medical anxiety, and that this newly created measure correlated at a strong level with previous measures that assess various types of medical anxiety, and that this newly created measure correlated at a strong level with previous measures that assess various aspects of healthcare.

Disciplines

Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

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