Phobic nature of social difficulty in facially disfigured people

Background Over 390 000 people in the UK are disfigured. Facial disfigureme nt distresses sufferers markedly but has been studied little. Aims To compare fearful avoidance of people with a facial disfigurement wit h that of a group of patients with phobia. Method Comparison of Fear Questionnaire agoraphobia, social phobia and anxi ety depression sub-scale scores of 112 facially disfigured people (who scor ed high on Fear Questionnaire problem severity in three survey studies) wit h those of 66 out-patients with agoraphobia and 68 out-patients with social phobia. Results Facially disfigured people and patients with social phobia had simi lar Fear Questionnaire scores. In contrast, facially disfigured people scor ed lower on the agoraphobia sub-score but higher on the social phobia sub-s core than did patients with agoraphobia. Conclusions Facially disfigured people with psychological difficulties rese mbled people with social phobia on Fear Questionnaire social phobia, agorap hobia and anxiety/depression sub-scores but were less agoraphobic and more socially phobic than were people with agoraphobia. Facially disfigured peop le thus appeared to be socially phobic and to deserve the cognitive-behavio ural therapy that is effective for such phobias. Declaration of interest R.N, was initially supported by the University of H ull and by the University of Leeds '' thereafter.