Excessive fear of clusters of holes, its interaction with stressful life events and the association with anxiety and depressive symptoms: large epidemiological study of young people in Hong Kong.

Screening for trypophobia in young people may facilitate early risk detection and intervention, particularly among those with recent stress exposure. Nevertheless, the generally small effect sizes suggest that other factors have more prominent roles in determining recent mental health outcomes in population-based samples; these should be explored in future work.