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Fear of crossing streets

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(Redirected from Agyrophobia) Type of phobia
Pedestrian crosswalk

The fear of crossing streets, or its terms dromophobia and agyrophobia, is a specific phobia that affects a person's ability to cross a street or roadway where cars or vehicles may be present. The term dromophobia comes from the Greek dromos, meaning racetrack.

Causes of dromophobia

Dromophobia may result from experiencing a road accident and thus may be classified as a subtype of panic disorder with agoraphobia (PDA). As such, dromophobia, especially fear of crossing streets alone may be a component of accident-related posttraumatic stress disorder, as a reaction to a situation reminiscent of the past traumatic event. Sometimes this behavior may be misinterpreted during PTSD symptom assessment as a caution (i.e., a normal learning behavior) rather than fear (which is an abnormal avoidant behavior).

Fear of crossing streets may also result from an anticipatory anxiety related to person's limited mobility. For example, a person with stiff-person syndrome may experience attacks of increasing stiffness or spasms while crossing the street.

Dromophobia may be present in people, especially children, with autism, or other neurological conditions that impact the ability to judge the speed of an approaching car.

See also

References

  1. Page, Andrew (1994). "Distinguishing Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia from Social Phobia". Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease. 182 (11): 611–7. doi:10.1097/00005053-199411000-00003. PMID 7964668. S2CID 28072899.
  2. Kuch, Klaus (November–December 1995). "A Brief Self-Rating Scale for PTSD After Road Vehicle Accident". Journal of Anxiety Disorders. 9 (6): 503–514. doi:10.1016/0887-6185(95)00029-n.
  3. Keppel-Benson, Jane M.; Ollendick, Thomas H.; Benson, Mark J. (February 2002). "Post-Traumatic Stress in Children Following Motor Vehicle Accidents". Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry. 43 (2): 203–212. doi:10.1111/1469-7610.00013. PMID 11902599.
  4. Scheeringa, Michael S. (2011). "PTSD in Children Younger than the Age of 13". Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma. 4 (3): 181–197. doi:10.1080/19361521.2011.597079. PMC 6379904. PMID 30792828. Also in: Nader, Kathleen (2016). Assessment of Trauma in Youths. Routledge. pp. 21–36. ISBN 978-1134905966 – via Google Books.
  5. Rodrigues de Cerqueira, Ana Claudia; Ferreira Becerra, José Marcelo; Rozentha, Márcia; Emídio Nardi, Antônio (August 2010). "Stiff-Person Syndrome and Generalized Anxiety Disorder". Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatria. 68 (4): 659–661. doi:10.1590/S0004-282X2010000400036. PMID 20730330.
  6. Strickland, Dorothy (1996). "A Virtual Reality Application with Autistic Children". Presence. 5 (3). MIT Press Journals: 319–329. doi:10.1162/pres.1996.5.3.319. S2CID 27235834.

Further reading


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