IATROPHOBIA (fear of the doctor): what is it, symptoms, causes and treatment

Getting sick usually generates unpleasant sensations in the body. Taking into account everything that has happened in recent years with the emergence of new viruses and bacteria that affect the body, it is understandable that we seek valuable methods of personal care. The health centers have had an excessive demand due to the conditions that we have gone through at a general level.

Given these circumstances, a certain tendency has been installed to avoid going to these places in order not to spread diseases that circulate there. The truth is that there are people who develop an intense fear in the presence of health personnel who wear some type of characteristic uniform. These difficulties can produce complex consequences for the development of daily life. Having efficient and concrete data about this topic can help to cope with these situations in a more pleasant way. In this Psychology-Online article, we will talk about the Iatrophobia: what is it, symptoms, causes and treatment.

Index

1. What is iatrophobia
2. Symptoms of iatrophobia
3. Causes of iatrophobia
4. Treatment of iatrophobia

When we refer to iatrophobia, we are referring to an anxiety disorder characterized by irrational and exacerbated fear in the presence of doctors in health centers. This clinical picture can be included within the group of specific phobias delimited by the DSM-V^[1] because of its peculiarities.

In order to establish an adequate diagnosis of iatrophobia, it is essential to be able to locate a series of diagnostic criteria that must be met to carry it out:

• Fear and/or anxiety against the visit of doctors.
• Being in the presence of doctors almost always causes fear or anxiety
• Avoidance of going to the doctor, even if necessary.
• The fear or anxiety is out of proportion to the actual danger posed by the medical visit.
• Duration of six months or more.
• Impairs health and affects social relationships with people from the industry
• The symptoms of iatrophobia are not linked to the presence of another mental disorder.

Iatrophobia presents a series of manifestations that arise both physically and emotionally. Next, we will display the main symptoms of fear of doctors:

• Catastrophic ideas referred to diseases.
• Fear of physical contact with other people.
• Avoidance of health centers.
• Low self-esteem.
• Low tolerance to frustration.
• vomiting.
• Nausea.
• Excessive sweating.
• Incrise of cardiac frecuency.
• Tremors.
• Shortness of breath.

It should be noted that the presence of any of these symptoms in isolation does not necessarily represent a picture of iatrophobia. It is imperative that a mental health professional make the diagnosis, evaluating the clinical conditions of each person.

One of the most relevant aspects when a phobia manifests itself is discovering the origin of this problem. Therefore, next, we will see what are the causes of iatrophobia:

• Environmental factors: unpleasant experiences that the person has experienced that are linked to fear of doctors. On the one hand, it is possible that during the person's childhood there were traumatic moments with doctors. Likewise, another cause of iatrophobia can be the imitation of the behavior of a family member who is afraid of doctors. In these cases, the person imitates what they see or hear from significant people.
• Genetic factors: Although it has not been fully proven, there are possibilities that genetic inheritance influences this anxiety disorder. There are sectors of the cerebral cortex that are linked to the processing of information from the environment, thus resulting in the predominance of certain emotions. In the case of patients with iatrophobia, certain neural connections associated with this type of fear may have developed more globally.

Fortunately, there are several ways to treat fear of doctors. In this section, we will address the different treatments for iatrophobia that have been shown to have a good prognosis against this diagnosis:

psychological therapy

Therapy is a space that involves personal reflection. In general terms, the objective is to look for possible alternatives that allow coping with situations of stress and/or anxiety in a more pleasant way. Let's see how to do it:

• short-term therapies: They work in a limited period of sessions on the emotions, thoughts and behaviors that cause the patient's symptoms. In other words, they seek to generate effective strategies for certain feared scenarios. In the case of patients with iatrophobia, the idea is to make the visit to the doctor more pleasant.
• long-term therapies: They try to find the origin of the person's conflicts from the memory of childhood situations that cause the symptoms.

psychiatric medication

In severe cases of iatrophobia, one of the possibilities of intervention lies in the use of anxiolytics reduce the intensity of the patient's symptoms. However, the provision of psychiatric medications must be carried out under the supervision of a mental health professional. If you want to have more information about them, in this article you will find what the different ones are. types of anxiolytics.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Iatrophobia (fear of the doctor): what is it, symptoms, causes and treatment, we recommend that you enter our category of Clinical psychology.

1. American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (5th ed.). Arlington: Pan American Medical Publisher.

• Luque Gonzlez, A. (2017). Treatment of a case of injection phobia without biphasic response. Journal of Clinical Cases in Mental Health, 1 (3), 1-24.
• Rilova Salazar, F.A. (2020). Bioethics and truthfulness. When the doctor's word can deepen the patient's helplessness. Acta Bioethica Journal, 26 (2), 179-187.