User:PedB03/Aquaphobia

Aquaphobia is an irrational fear of water.

Aquaphobia is considered a Specific Phobia of natural environment type in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. A specific phobia is an intense fear of something that poses little or no actual danger.

Article Evaluation
This article has very little information on the topic of choice, aquaphobia. The information provided gives insight on prevalence in the U.S., the manifestation of the phobia and the etymology of the word. Reading from the outside there is no claim to be made and it does not support nor discredit any form of information, making it neutral. I do believe it is very lacking on information but everything that is provided is backed by sources. I think that this article does address a small good size proportion of the population because it is a pretty under the radar type of phobia. By this I mean a lot of people know about the concept but can not put or fail to put words to it. I think an article like this can be further developed and looked into.

Etiology and Manifestation
The word aquaphobia stems from the latin word 'aqua' meaning water and the greek word 'phobos' meaning fear or horror. The two parts together are how we are able to define aquaphobia as an irrational fear of water.

There are five common causes of aquaphobia: instinctive fear of drowning, experienced an incident of personal horror, has an overprotective parent/parent with aquaphobia, psychological difficulty adjusting to water and lack of trust in water. Psychologists indicate that aquaphobia manifests itself in people through a combination of experiential and genetic factors.

Prevalence
In America, 46% of American adults are afraid of deep water in pools and the other 64% are afraid of deep open waters. According to Lindal and Stefansson aquaphobia may affect as many as 1.8% of the general Icelandic population, or almost one in fifty people.

Signs and Symptoms
Physical responses include nausea, dizziness, numbness, shortness of breath, increased heart rate, sweating and shivering.

In addition the signs and symptoms above, some general signs and symptoms one may display in reaction to a specific phobia may include:


 * Physical Symptoms: trembling, hot flushes or chills, pain or tightness in chest, butterflies in stomach, feeling faint, dry mouth, ringing in ears, confusion
 * Psychological Symptoms: feeling fear of losing control, fainting, dread and dying.