Aversion caused by skin diseases - a crowdsourcing study.

BACKGROUND: Disgust is a universal emotion that plays a role in reducing people's exposure to situations with risks of contamination. By the same token, skin diseases could generate aversion in observers. The present study aimed to assess the aversion triggered when viewing skin disease lesions on the face and hands. METHODS: A questionnaire was applied over the Internet containing demographic questions, assessment of personal sensitivity to disgust - by the Disgust Scale-Revised (DS-R) -, and the aversion triggered when viewing eight images of skin diseases using an image aversion score (IAS) ranging from 0 to 10. RESULTS: Six-hundred forty-nine people responded, 49% female, with a median age of 26 (p25-p75: 22-34). A total of 2596 evaluations of images were collected. The overall IAS median was 2 (0-4), and Cronbach's alpha resulted 0.87. There was a significant correlation between DS-R and IAS (Spearman's rho = 0.42; P < 0.01). Seven-hundred twenty-four (28%) evaluations were considered as contagious diseases and received higher IAS: 5 (2-7) × 1 (0-3); P < 0.01. In multivariate analysis, the higher IAS was independently associated with male gender, with no children, not working as a health professional or caregiver, and presenting higher DS-R (P < 0.01). By analyzing the IAS according to morphological characteristics, we identified lower scores for macular dyschromic lesions (P < 0.01). CONCLUSIONS: The aversion triggered by skin lesions varies according to the personal characteristics of the observer and the morphology of the lesion, being lower for macular dyschromic lesions, and associated with disgust sensitivity and the assignment of contagiousness to the lesion.

Normative data of the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale 11 (BIS-11) for Brazilian adults.

OBJECTIVE: The Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11) is a valid and reliable instrument, and one of the most often used tools to assess impulsivity. This study assesses the performance of a large sample of adults by using a version of BIS-11 adapted to Brazilian Portuguese. METHODS: We assessed 3,053 adults from eight Brazilian states. Internal consistencies and performance data were presented for two correction criteria of BIS-11: original and the two-factor score. RESULTS: The associations between age, sex, region, and education and the BIS-11 scores present very small effect sizes. Therefore, we provided a percentile rank parameter for the different BIS-11 subscores considering the whole sample. Given the internal consistency of the two correction systems, we found that only the two-factor system fulfills the psychometric criteria of Cronbach's alpha (cutoff value of at least 0.6). CONCLUSION: Our results support the use of the Brazilian adaptation of BIS-11 in different regions of the country as a measure of impulsivity. Since high impulsiveness is a characteristic of several dysfunctional behaviors, the establishment of normative parameters is of utmost relevance and should be extended to other age ranges and populations in future studies.