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. 2017 Dec;24(3-4):270-278.
doi: 10.1007/s10880-017-9514-y.

Psychological Predictors of Health Anxiety in Response to the Zika Virus

Shannon M Blakey  1 , Jonathan S Abramowitz  2
Affiliations

Psychological Predictors of Health Anxiety in Response to the Zika Virus

Shannon M Blakey et al. J Clin Psychol Med Settings. 2017 Dec.

Abstract

The threat of a United States (U.S.) Zika virus pandemic during 2015-2016 was associated with public anxiety. Such threats represent opportunities to examine hypotheses about health anxiety. The present study investigated psychological predictors of Zika-related anxiety during the 2015-2016 outbreak. U.S. adults (N = 216) completed a battery of measures assessing Zika-related anxiety as well as psychological variables hypothesized to predict anxious responding to the threat of a domestic Zika outbreak. Contrary to hypotheses, regression analyses indicated that only contamination severity overestimates and greater Zika knowledge significantly predicted Zika-related anxiety. Study limitations and clinical implications are discussed.

Keywords: Contamination; Health anxiety; Zika.

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Conflict of interest statement

Shannon M. Blakey and Jonathan S. Abramowitz declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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