Needle phobia effects from 3.5% to 10% of the general population, according to research estimates. Some degree of anxiety or distress around needles appears to be more even more prevalent. Gallup Polls in 1998 and 2001 found that needles ranked among the top fears of American adults, with 21% of respondents in both surveys saying they were afraid of needles or getting a shot.
That fear can have public health consequences when patients forgo medical care and vaccines.
Anxiety from needles and shots was cited as a reason why many American adults avoided getting a flu vaccine, according to a 2019 poll by NORC at the University of Chicago. The survey found that 37% of Americans didn’t intend to get a flu shot; of those, 16% described dislike of needles as a major reason and 15% said it was a minor reason for not getting immunized.
Public health consequences
A notable case of needle phobia was basketball player and former Chicago Bulls star Derrick Rose, who famously refused to get stitches for a gash on his face he suffered during a college game in 2008, citing his trypanophobia.
“I’m terrified of needles,” he said at the time, according to The Associated Press. “If I would have got stitches, they would have had to stick a needle right above my eye. So I was pouting, stormed out of the locker room. I was mad.”
Some have found his phobia intriguing, since he has many tattoos. Yet he has described encountering a needle for medical care as a completely different experience from getting a tattoo.
When he avoided stitches, some of the media coverage was merciless, including one online headline that declared “Needles make Derrick Rose cry.”
But mental health experts caution that phobias are more than just discomfort or an aversion to the source of anxiety, and they can cause the sufferer much anguish.
“I definitely think there’s a stigma,” said Maha Zayed, a clinical psychologist at the OCD and Anxiety Center. “People don’t understand the severity of it or how terrifying it can feel.”
Fear of needles is considered a specific phobia, the most common category of anxiety disorders, which effect about 19 million American adults, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. Often these specific phobias emerge in childhood or young adulthood, and are marked by an overwhelming and irrational fear of typical, everyday experiences, situations or activities.
Other common specific phobias include fear of insects, flying, enclosed spaces, driving and heights.
The fear of needles can also have broader public health implications, particularly amid a pandemic that can only be quelled by vaccinating a large segment of the population.
A 2018 University of Michigan study found that needle fear spurred 16% of adult patients, 27% of hospital employees and 18% of workers at long-term care facilities to refrain from getting a flu vaccine.
“Having a fear of needles is extremely common, and it has real implications,” said Jennifer McLenon, co-author of the study and an infection prevention specialist at a Detroit hospital. “It’s easy to dismiss it as something a child will grow out of, but our study shows that this fear can exist in people of any age. It can impact whether affected people will seek medical care and stay up to date on their vaccines, which in turn can affect their individual health outcomes, and possibly even herd immunity in their communities.”
McLenon surmised that some of the people who refuse a flu shot due to fear of needles might forgo a COVID-19 vaccine for the same reason. The new vaccine might even seem more frightening because it requires a second booster shot weeks later, for maximum efficacy.
Others, though, might be able to overcome their phobia because fear of COVID-19 looms larger, she said.
The number of cases recently surpassed a million in Illinois and 87 million worldwide; more than 18,000 in the state and 1.89 million across the globe have lost their lives to the new virus.
“They have to factor in their concerns about getting and spreading the disease, any underlying conditions they may have, and the other ways in which the pandemic is affecting their lives,” she said. “I think it will come down to whether a person’s fear of needles outweighs their fear of COVID-19.”
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