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Preventative Care: The Fear Factor

by Rick Blizzard

Gallup research shows that a significant majority of Americans (84%) have visited a doctor in the past year. What about the other 16%? There are a multitude of reasons why people avoid the doctor's office, a major one being lack of insurance coverage. But how much of a role does fear play in the average person's reluctance to go to the doctor? Are there certain preventative health measures -- such as getting a flu shot -- that people may avoid out of fear?

A February 2001 Gallup poll* surveyed U.S. adults about how much they fear various things. Respondents were given a list of 13 items and asked whether they fear each item. The two most frequently identified fears were snakes (50%) and public speaking (40%).

Nearly one-fifth of the population (21%) fears "needles and getting shots," which ranked sixth on the list, just behind spiders and insects (27%) and just ahead of mice (20%). Only 9% of adults fear "going to the doctor," which ranked 12th out of the 13 items tested. Fear of dogs came in just ahead of going to the doctor at 11%, and fear of the dark ranked last at 5%.

Fear of visiting the doctor is not a major hindrance to preventative healthcare, as fewer than one in 10 U.S. adults report being afraid to do so. Fear of needles is a more common phenomenon, affecting more than one in five adults. About one in four adults (26%) say they are afraid of one or the other -- and therefore may be thinking twice before going in for a checkup.

*Results are based on telephone interviews with 1,016 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted Feb. 19-21, 2001. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of sampling error is ±3%.


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