Emetophobia (fear of vomiting): A meta-analysis

Abstract

Emetophobia refers to a specific fear of vomiting. There are only few original research studies on this condition and no study that has meta-analytically synthesized findings to describe the characteristics of persons with emetophobia. To this end, we extracted data from 31 reports and—as we examined different dependent variables—each meta-analysis was based on five to 21 samples. The pooled mean age of persons with emetophobia was 29 years but was reduced to 21–27 years when adjusting for publication bias. The pooled mean age of disorder onset was 10 years. The pooled proportion of females was 91 %. The pooled proportions of reporting fear of vomiting oneself, fear of seeing others vomit, or both, were 47 %, 11 %, and 39 %. The most common comorbid mental disorders were social anxiety disorder, depression, and generalized anxiety disorder. The pooled point prevalence of emetophobia was 5 %. Higher emetophobic symptomatology moderately related to higher disgust propensity and higher anxiety, and weakly related to higher depressive symptomatology. This meta-analysis is the first to quantify that most adults with emetophobia are in early adulthood but the disorder started in childhood, almost all are women, the primary locus of fear is vomiting oneself, the most common comorbid mental disorders are other anxiety and affective disorders, and higher emetophobic symptomatology relates to a more general tendency to be easily disgusted and to be anxious. Studies based on representative samples to obtain reliable estimates on the prevalence of emetophobia are needed.