Fear and Disgust Toward Insect Among Psychiatric Disorder Patients and Healthy People

Abstract

The present study investigates the prevalence of fear and disgust toward insects among people with mental illness. A cross-sectional survey using a newly designed arthropods survey was distributed to targeted population using both google forms and face-to-face recruitment. Out of 175 respondents in the study, 41% are diagnosed with any psychiatric disorder while 59% are healthy people. There are significant differences between fear and disgust on insects among healthy people and people with mental illness. Wasp (87.3%), weaver ant (44.4%), and sago larvae (31.3%) were feared by psychiatric patients. Sago larvae was the most disgusting insect by people with mental illness (51.5%) while healthy people were more disgusted with caterpillars (53.4%). The fear and disgust of different insects vary with gender and employment among the two groups; female from both groups were more disgusted with head lice than male while employed healthy adults feared head lice. This study provides new knowledge on the existence of fear and disgust of arthropods among people with mental illness. Since such people have high comorbidity with other psychiatric disorders, this finding provides new insights on the prevalence of fear and disgust toward insects among the patients for early intervention by health professionals.