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Direction of threat attention bias predicts treatment outcome in anxious children receiving cognitive-behavioural therapy

Direction of threat attention bias predicts treatment outcome in anxious children receiving cognitive-behavioural therapy
Direction of threat attention bias predicts treatment outcome in anxious children receiving cognitive-behavioural therapy
A bias to selectively direct attention to threat stimuli is a cognitive characteristic of anxiety disorders. Recent studies indicate that individual differences in pre-treatment threat attention bias predict treatment outcomes from cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) in anxious individuals. However, there have been inconsistent findings regarding whether attention bias towards threat predicts better or poorer treatment outcome. Method: This longitudinal study examined treatment outcomes in 35 clinically anxious children following a 10-week, group-based CBT program, as a function of whether children showed a pre-treatment attention bias towards or away from threat stimuli. The effect of CBT on attention bias was also assessed. Results: Both groups showed significant improvement after receiving CBT. However, anxious children with a pre-treatment attention bias towards threat showed greater reductions not only in anxiety symptom severity, but also in the likelihood of meeting diagnostic criteria for anxiety disorders at post-treatment assessment, in comparison with anxious children who showed a pre-treatment attention bias away from threat. Children who had a pre-treatment bias away from threat showed a reduction in this bias over the course of CBT. Conclusions: Findings suggest that pre-existing differences in the direction of attention towards versus away from threat could have important implications for the treatment of anxious children.
0005-7967
428-434
Waters, Allison M.
645fe1e5-8d54-4667-a198-ab6862031291
Mogg, Karin
5f1474af-85f5-4fd3-8eb6-0371be848e30
Bradley, Brendan P.
bdacaa6c-528b-4086-9448-27ebfe463514
Waters, Allison M.
645fe1e5-8d54-4667-a198-ab6862031291
Mogg, Karin
5f1474af-85f5-4fd3-8eb6-0371be848e30
Bradley, Brendan P.
bdacaa6c-528b-4086-9448-27ebfe463514

Waters, Allison M., Mogg, Karin and Bradley, Brendan P. (2012) Direction of threat attention bias predicts treatment outcome in anxious children receiving cognitive-behavioural therapy. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 50 (6), 428-434.

Record type: Article

Abstract

A bias to selectively direct attention to threat stimuli is a cognitive characteristic of anxiety disorders. Recent studies indicate that individual differences in pre-treatment threat attention bias predict treatment outcomes from cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) in anxious individuals. However, there have been inconsistent findings regarding whether attention bias towards threat predicts better or poorer treatment outcome. Method: This longitudinal study examined treatment outcomes in 35 clinically anxious children following a 10-week, group-based CBT program, as a function of whether children showed a pre-treatment attention bias towards or away from threat stimuli. The effect of CBT on attention bias was also assessed. Results: Both groups showed significant improvement after receiving CBT. However, anxious children with a pre-treatment attention bias towards threat showed greater reductions not only in anxiety symptom severity, but also in the likelihood of meeting diagnostic criteria for anxiety disorders at post-treatment assessment, in comparison with anxious children who showed a pre-treatment attention bias away from threat. Children who had a pre-treatment bias away from threat showed a reduction in this bias over the course of CBT. Conclusions: Findings suggest that pre-existing differences in the direction of attention towards versus away from threat could have important implications for the treatment of anxious children.

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Published date: 2012
Organisations: Clinical Neuroscience

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 336163
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/336163
ISSN: 0005-7967
PURE UUID: 9fcf5bff-3c03-4b8d-aa74-af1a47ac9bec
ORCID for Brendan P. Bradley: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-2801-4271

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Date deposited: 16 Mar 2012 13:04
Last modified: 10 Jan 2022 02:44

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Contributors

Author: Allison M. Waters
Author: Karin Mogg

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