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Practice Editing Here (Nov 15th in-class Wiki session work)
Specific Phobia
 * This is a place to practice clicking the "edit" button and practice adding references (via the citation button).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK499923/

Task:


 * 1) Find a peer-reviewed journal article on PubMed. Practice inserting your citation in the above space using the "cite" tool
 * 2) Choose one "B-level" medical article on Wikipedia from the following list: https://wp1.openzim.org/#/project/Medicine/articles?quality=B-Class&importance=High-Class
 * 3) Practice editing live on Wikipedia by finding a typo in the text or improving the clarity/readability of a sentence by adjusting a few words in a sentence.

Assignment # 3- please post an anonymous copy here!


Group Proposed Changes

1. Addition of a subheading for Causes which will be inclusive of information regarding etiology and risk factors. Addition of this subheading is in line with the WP:MEDMOS, and addresses a gap in the page regarding historical and ongoing discussion and research.

2. Relocation and reformatting of the following sentences (with new wikilink): "The exact etiology of specific phobias is not known, and may vary based on the phobia itself. Potential causes include genetics, environmental influences, conditioning, and other indirect pathways. Causes of specific phobia can be both experiential and non-experiential; for example, there appears to be a stronger genetic component to blood-injection-injury phobias compared to animal phobias, which are more likely to stem from an experience.[6]"

3. Insert the following (with wikilink): The most common classical conditioning model suggests that a phobia will develop when an event that causes a fear or anxiety reaction is paired with a neutral event. An example of this model is when being near a dog (neutral event) is paired with the emotional experience of being bitten by a dog, resulting in a chronic fear which is described as a specific phobia to dogs.

4. Insert the following (with wikilink): An alternative proposed mechanism of association is through observational learning. A person may internalize another person’s fears about a specific object or situation through observation of their reactions.

Group Rationale for proposed changes

Within the original specific phobia article there is only one small paragraph dedicated to causes which is included within the Signs and Symptoms section. Having a section for Causes is in line with WP:MEDMOS, and it helps format the page in a more organized manner. Most importantly, addition of this subsection will provide a dedicated location to summarize the decades of research into the etiology and risk factors associated with specific phobia that are currently only briefly introduced.

The reformatting of original paragraph provides better literary flow for the subsequent inclusion of material within the section, and the wikilink for the term etiology makes the article more accessible for users who may not be familiar with the term. The reference associated with this section remains up to date and relevant.

The addition of the information regarding conditioning came from a review publication within PubMed within the last year. This information is necessary because it further explores relevant models for the cause of specific phobia within the context of the condition. The addition of the example, as well as the wikilinks, make the article more accessible for readers of all literacy levels. There are many potential causes of specific phobia and it is still unclear exactly how these causes interact on a clinical level, thus it is important to highlight the scope of the question. Information pertaining to causes can be beneficial for people to better understand how their conditions may have precipitated and to provide context for primarily psychological therapy based treatments which are the mainstay for treatment of specific phobias. It should be noted that another group will be adding information that will complete the Causes subsection, thus our contributions had to be deconflicted and formatted for consistency.

Area of controversy

A potential area of controversy/ambiguity for our proposed changes comes from the fact that there is limited literature available to support the conditioning model’s role in the development of specific phobia. This is the case with all proposed causes of phobias. Most reviews pertaining to specific phobia highlight conditioning models as a potential cause for specific phobia. Specific phobias have also been observed and created experimentally. That being said, it is known that conditioning does not cause or contribute to all specific phobias. There appears to be significant interplay between genetics, environmental factors, other mental health comorbidities, and many other psychological models; all of which can lead to the same outcome through numerous potential pathways. We have addressed this controversy by attempting to summarize the most significant causes that are supported by high-quality research.

Critique of source

Overall there are very few recent and relevant published resources which address the potential causes for specific phobia. The reference used for the proposed additions is a review/online book that was last updated in 15 May 2021 which is specific to this type of anxiety. It can be accessed through PubMed. This reference appears to blur the lines between a textbook and review publication, and the most notable weakness is that it is not the highest strength of evidence. That being said, the section that we have paraphrased come from studies conducted within the last two years which are building on many decades of research in the area of causes of specific phobia. The concept of conditioning with regards to phobias has been published since at least the 1970s, and the selected review is in line with other more dated resources that I have reviewed. Of course, using these original sources would not meet the WP:MEDRS standards. No significant biases or validity issues were identified in the selected review, although the article only provided a superficial overview specific to psychological models without exploring other causes such as genetics. In this sense it may have a minor bias in that the reviewers did not examine the totality of evidence pertaining to the issue (selection bias), but the purpose of the review was multifaceted and discussion regarding etiology was only meant to serve as a general introduction into the topic rather than a comprehensive examination. Although our group assessed other resources which could have been referenced, we determined that this single resource was the highest quality to support the edits that we were both hoping to make.

What to post on the Wikipedia article talk page (part of assignment 3)

 * This will also be covered on Nov 15th in class. Your group should use the below template to share an outline of your proposed improvements (including your new wording and citations). Article talk pages are not places to share your assignment answers. The Wikipedia community will be more interested in viewing your exact article improvement suggestions including where you plan to improve the article (which section), what wording you suggest, and the exact citation (Note: all citations must meet WP:MEDRS)
 * You will not be able to paste citations directly from your sandbox to talk pages (unless you are interested in editing/learning Wiki-code in the "source editing" mode). We suggest re-adding your citations on the talk page manually (using the cite button and populating the citation by pasting in the DOI, website, or PMID). You will have to repeat this process yet again when you edit the actual article live.
 * Talk Page Template: CARL Medical Editing Initiative/Fall 2021/Talk Page Template