Fears are common in the general population and particularly among children. The number of fear subtypes (animals, natural environment, situational, blood–injection–injury or other type) has been shown to be associated with psychopathology. Furthermore, there is evidence suggesting that some subtypes may be more often associated with mental disorders than others. The present study uses data from a large cross sectional survey, the School Children Mental Health in Europe (SCMHE) study, conducted in eight European countries on children ages 6 through 13-years-old attending elementary school (n = 9613). Fear subtypes and self-reported mental health were assessed using the Dominic Interactive (DI), a self-administered computerized image-based questionnaire. The findings show that the number of fear subtypes is strongly associated with self-reported internalizing and externalizing problems. In addition, adjusting for the number of subtypes, fear of animals was less likely than other fears to be associated with psychopathology. The findings support the notion that children who report excessive and generalized fear should be targeted for prevention, consistent with research identifying childhood onset generalized specific phobia as a probable precursor to subsequent psychopathology.

恐惧在普通人群中很常见，尤其是在儿童中。恐惧亚型（动物、自然环境、情境、血液注射伤害或其他类型）的数量已被证明与精神病理学有关。此外，有证据表明某些亚型可能比其他亚型更常与精神障碍相关。本研究使用的数据来自一项大型横断面调查，即欧洲学童心理健康 (SCMHE) 研究，该研究在八个欧洲国家针对 6 至 13 岁上小学的儿童进行 ( n = 9613）。使用 Dominic Interactive (DI) 评估恐惧亚型和自我报告的心理健康状况，这是一种自我管理的计算机化基于图像的问卷。研究结果表明，恐惧子类型的数量与自我报告的内化和外化问题密切相关。此外，根据亚型的数量进行调整后，与其他恐惧相比，对动物的恐惧不太可能与精神病理学相关联。研究结果支持这样一种观点，即报告过度和普遍恐惧的儿童应该成为预防的目标，这与将儿童期发作的广泛性特定恐惧症确定为随后精神病理学的可能先兆的研究相一致。