Читать книгу Phobias: Fighting the Fear - Helen Saul - Страница 7

So, is that the problem solved? Well, no, not quite. For a start, the scale of the problem is immense. Community studies report that up to two in five of us have a severe dislike of something, and even full-blown phobias are common. Strictly speaking, there is no phobia epidemic, since an epidemic usually refers to an infectious disease that has struck an unusual number. There is no evidence suggesting that there are suddenly more people affected than ever before. But to get a rough idea of the scope, let us just compare the prevalence of phobias with a relatively common infectious disease like influenza.

In the winter of 1999/2000, almost 400 out of every 100,000 in the British population went to their doctor with influenza, which means that it was approaching epidemic levels. The impact on the National Health Service was extreme. Hospital beds were filled with flu patients, so planned operations for cancer and heart disease had to be cancelled, and the NHS was in crisis. And this, at a level of 0.4 per cent.

Official figures are probably an underestimate, as many sensibly managed their illness at home, but even if only one in five consulted their doctor, that would mean the real figure affected was 2 per cent. How does this compare with the numbers affected by phobias?

The ECA study mentioned above found that between 4 and 11 per cent of interviewees had suffered from at least one phobia in the past month. From this, researchers estimated that more than 6 per cent of the population has a phobia at any one time.

We all knew at least a handful of people who were ill with influenza in the winter of 1999/2000. This guestimate suggests that, whether aware of it or not, we probably know three times as many with phobias. These figures give some idea of just how widespread phobias are.