Direction of threat attention bias predicts treatment outcome in anxious children receiving cognitive-behavioural therapy
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 (In Press).
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Description/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.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| ISSNs: | 0005-7967 (print) 1873-622X (electronic) |
| Related URLs: | |
| Subjects: | B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology R Medicine > RJ Pediatrics > RJ101 Child Health. Child health services |
| Divisions: | Faculty of Social and Human Sciences > Psychology > Clinical Neuroscience |
| Item ID: | 336163 |
| Date Deposited: | 16 Mar 2012 13:04 |
| Last Modified: | 16 Mar 2012 13:04 |
| Contributors: | Waters, Allison M. (Author) Mogg, Karin (Author) Bradley, Brendan P. (Author) |
| Date: | 15 March 2012 |
| Status: | In Press |
| URI: | http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/336163 |
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