Attentional bias to respiratory- and anxiety-related threat in children with asthma

Abstract

This study investigated attentional biases in children with asthma. The study aimed at testing whether children with asthma are vigilant to asthma and/or anxiety cues. Thirty-six children (18 with asthma and 18 healthy controls) aged 9-12 completed a computerised dot probe task designed to measure attentional bias to three different categories of words: asthma, anxiety symptom and general negative emotion. Main caregiver anxiety was also assessed, as was frequency of inhaler use for those with asthma. Children with asthma showed an attentional bias towards asthma words but not anxiety or general negative emotion words. Children without asthma showed no significant attentional biases to any word categories. Caregiver anxiety was correlated with asthma word attentional bias in the asthma group. The findings indicate that attentional bias is present in children with asthma. Further research is required to ascertain if this exacerbates or maintains health-related problems.

Anxiety and Attentional Bias in Children with Specific Learning Disorders

“…The dot probe compares response times to probes in spatial proximity to threatening or neutral stimuli to quantify a threat-related attentional bias (MacLeod et al 1986). This task has been used to ascertain attentional bias in a variety of child populations, including those with depression (Joormann et al 2007;Neshat-Doost et al 2000;Taghavi et al 1999), post-traumatic stress disorder (Bertó et al 2017;Briggs-Gowan et al 2015;Dalgleish et al 2001), autism spectrum disorder (Hollocks et al 2013;May et al 2015;Moore et al 2012;Zhao et al 2016), Williams syndrome (Dodd and Porter 2010;McGrath et al 2016), asthma (Dudeney et al 2017;Lowther et al 2016), and a range of anxiety disorders (Hunt et al 2007;Salum et al 2013;Sylvester et al 2016;Vasey et al 1995;Waters et al 2010).…”

Evidence for mood-dependent attentional processing in asthma: attentional bias towards health-threat in depressive mood and attentional avoidance in neutral mood

“…In contrast, Dudeney et al ( 2017 ) did not observe an attentional bias towards asthma words in children with asthma despite replicating the method used by Lowther et al ( 2015 ). The study compared an asthma group, with a group with comorbid asthma and anxiety, a group with anxiety alone, and healthy controls.…”

“…Another potential explanation for mixed findings of De Peuter et al ( 2007 ) and Lowther et al ( 2015 ) is that an illness schema in children may be different from a perhaps more established schema in adults. In a similar vein, Pincus and Morley ( 2001 ) suggest that people with long-term chronic pain have already developed methods of coping with their pain which would be reflected in their attentional processes with regard to pain-related information.…”

“…The other two studies on attentional bias in asthma were conducted with children (ages 8–13), and present conflicting evidence. Lowther et al ( 2015 ) found attentional bias towards asthma words in children with asthma as compared to children without asthma using a visual probe task that included asthma-related, anxiety, and negative emotional words. These words were presented for 1250 ms, deemed more suitable for children because their processing times are likely to be slower than adults.…”

“…Negative affect and depressed mood in asthma are associated with attentional bias towards respiratory-related words, increased sensitivity to symptoms (e.g. breathlessness) and amplified perception of symptoms in the absence of any physiological changes in adults (De Peuter et al, 2007 ; Jessop et al, 2004 ; Martinez-Moragon et al, 2003 ; Put et al, 2004 ) and in children (Lowther et al, 2015 ). To add to that picture, asthma has a high comorbidity with depression (Trojan et al, 2014 ), and depression in asthma is associated with poorer symptom control (Lavoie et al, 2006 ).…”