Article
Anesthesiology
Sabine Soltani, Dimitri M. L. van Ryckeghem, Tine Vervoort, Lauren C. Heathcote, Keith O. Yeates, Christopher Sears, Melanie Noel
Summary: Attentional biases play a key role in the development and maintenance of chronic pain and co-occurring internalizing mental health symptoms. This study used eye-tracking to assess attentional bias for painful facial expressions in youth with and without chronic pain. The results showed that both groups exhibited an attentional bias for painful facial expressions. However, there was no significant association between attentional bias and theorized antecedents or clinical outcomes in youth with chronic pain. Further research using more comprehensive paradigms is needed to understand how these biases relate to clinical outcomes.
Article
Anesthesiology
Emma BlaisdaleJones, Louise Sharpe, Jemma Todd, Hamish MacDougall, Michael Nicholas, Ben Colagiuri
Summary: The study found that attentional biases towards pain are ubiquitous, but for people with moderate-to-severe pain, interpretation biases may have a role worthy of further research.
Article
Biology
Jesse G. Leinwand, Mason Fidino, Stephen R. Ross, Lydia M. Hopper
Summary: Primates in zoos can spontaneously categorize humans based on familiarity and show attentional bias towards unfamiliar human faces, possibly reflecting a novelty effect.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Rebecca Louise Mellor, Elia Psouni
Summary: This study combined microsaccades and a dot-probe task to investigate the effects of attachment security priming on the attention biases of individuals high in attachment avoidance. The results indicated that avoidance was associated with attentional disengagement as shown in dot-probe data. Microsaccadic movements did not capture the same attentional disengagement, but they showed a positive correlation with dot-probe data, suggesting converging measurements.
FRONTIERS IN PSYCHOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Maryann Wei, Steven Roodenrys, Leonie Miller
Summary: Attentional bias for threat (ABT) is considered a central mechanism underlying anxiety, but the link between ABT and anxiety is inconsistent. This study found that ABT associated with self-reported anxiety only in individuals with a bias away from positive stimuli, but not in individuals with a bias towards positive stimuli. However, positive attentional biases themselves did not independently predict anxiety.
CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Susana Cardoso, Carina Fernandes, Fernando Barbosa
Summary: The study investigated the neural correlates of attentional bias in fibromyalgia (FM) and found that FM patients may have a generalized attentional deficit.
NEUROLOGY AND THERAPY
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Gemma van Heyst, Myoungju Shin, Danielle Sulikowski
Summary: This study further explored the influence of gender differences on visual attention to weapons and found that men are more susceptible to the cognitive behavioral effects of violent video game play.
Review
Anesthesiology
Emma Blaisdale Jones, Louise Sharpe, Sally Andrews, Ben Colagiuri, Joanne Dudeney, Elaine Fox, Lauren C. Heathcote, Jennifer Y. F. Lau, Jemma Todd, Stefaan Van Damme, Dimitri M. L. Van Ryckeghem, Tine Vervoort
Summary: The use of eye-tracking methods provides more direct and reliable assessment of attentional biases towards pain. Results showed significant attentional biases towards pain-related words or pictures in terms of dwell time and probability of first fixation, indicating that attentional biases towards pain stimuli are prominent regardless of pain status.
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Roberto Fernandes-Magalhaes, David Ferrera, Irene Pelaez, Maria Carmen Martin-Buro, Alberto Carpio, Maria Eugenia De Lahoz, Paloma Barjola, Francisco Mercado
Summary: There is an attentional bias in fibromyalgia patients, which is followed by a deficit in the allocation of attentional resources for processing pain-related information.
Article
Clinical Neurology
Edmund Keogh, Nina Attridge, Joseph Walsh, Jessica Bartlett, Rachel Francis, Janet H. Bultitude, Christopher Eccleston
Summary: This study found gender differences in attention to bodily expressions, including pain, with patterns varying across experiments. Women showed longer attention to expressive body postures compared to men in longer presentation conditions. The results have implications for understanding gender differences in attention to pain and their impact on pain behavior.
Review
Oncology
Poorva Pradhan, Louise Sharpe, Phyllis Butow
Summary: Research has shown that cancer survivors have a greater attentional bias towards salient stimuli (cancer/negative stimuli), especially those who are more distressed.
Article
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Manijeh Firoozi, Shima Rouhi
Summary: One of the challenges in pain management is that spine surgeries often do not relieve chronic back pain in patients. This study evaluated the impact of fundamental fears (death anxiety, fear of pain, and kinesiophobia) on the outcome of spinal surgeries in patients with persistent back pain. The findings suggest that intense fear of death, pain, or movement can increase the likelihood of surgery failure and decrease postoperative pain.
CURRENT PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Health Care Sciences & Services
Michio Maruta, Suguru Shimokihara, Yoshihiko Akasaki, Yuma Hidaka, Yuriko Ikeda, Gwanghee Han, Goro Tanaka, Toshio Higashi, Takefumi Moriuchi, Takayuki Tabira
Summary: This study aimed to determine the association between attentional bias and optimism based on different task types. The results showed no evidence that attentional biases derived from either the dot-probe task (DPT) or emotional visual search task (EVST) measures are associated with optimism or pessimism. Further research is needed to effectively adapt attentional bias modification to enhance optimism.
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Stephan Koenig, Karoline Koerfer, Harald Lachnit, Julia Anna Glombiewski
Summary: Individuals suffering from chronic pain show a learning bias in fear conditioning, leading to differences in autonomic responding and attentional preference for threat and safety cues compared to healthy controls. The reduced differential responding and less selective attention to safety cues may be explained by their experience of less positive emotion when the threat was absent following safety cues.
BEHAVIOUR RESEARCH AND THERAPY
(2021)
Article
Clinical Neurology
Nina Kreddig, Monika Ilona Hasenbring, Edmund Keogh
Summary: Increasing attentional focus away from pain can affect pain experience, and cognitive strategies can help with pain by changing attention allocation. This study examined the effects of two cognitive strategies, thought suppression and focused distraction, on pain-related attention and found that these strategies did not influence pain-related attention, but thought suppression had short-term benefits in terms of pain and perceived threat.
Article
Psychiatry
Rachel E. Menzies, Matteo Zuccala, Louise Sharpe, Ilan Dar-Nimrod
Summary: The study found that individuals with OCD commonly experience anxiety-related disorders prior to the onset of OCD, with separation anxiety disorder, specific phobias, and generalized anxiety disorder being the most frequent. Individuals with higher death anxiety tended to experience more disorders before developing OCD, while those with lower death anxiety were more likely to have OCD as their first disorder. These findings suggest that death anxiety may influence the trajectory towards OCD and the comorbidity among anxiety-related disorders, but further research is needed to determine the causal role of death anxiety in this trajectory.
NORDIC JOURNAL OF PSYCHIATRY
(2021)
Article
Anesthesiology
Jonathan N. Davies, Louise Sharpe, Melissa A. Day, Ben Colagiuri
Summary: Recent studies suggest that placebo effects contribute to acute pain relief after mindfulness interventions. However, the specific effects of mindfulness processes and their interaction with placebo effects are still unclear. This study aimed to examine the role of mindfulness and placebo processes in mindfulness-based pain attenuation.
Article
Oncology
Daelin Coutts-Bain, Louise Sharpe, Poorva Pradhan, Hayley Russell, Lauren C. Heathcote, Daniel Costa
Summary: This study aimed to determine whether fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) and fear of progression (FOP) are equivalent constructs and predicted by the same variables. The findings suggest that while FCR and FOP have some overlapping predictors, they are not the same concept.
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Rachel E. Menzies, Louise Sharpe, Ilan Dar-Nimrod
Summary: This study developed a new measurement tool for death anxiety and validated its effectiveness. The results showed that the tool has good validity and reliability, and can effectively distinguish clinically significant death anxiety and distress.
BRITISH JOURNAL OF CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Poorva Pradhan, Louise Sharpe, Phyllis Butow, Daelin Coutts-Bain, Lauren Charlotte Heathcote
Summary: This study found that women with clinically significant fear of cancer recurrence/progression (FCR/P) tend to interpret ambiguous words as health-related and experience more pain. Moreover, the study revealed that among women with higher levels of pain, FCR/P was higher only among those with higher levels of interpretation bias.
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Bethany Richmond, Louise Sharpe, Rachel E. Menzies
Summary: This research aimed to evaluate the effects of fear-based articles about COVID-19 on intentions to adhere to mitigation measures and interpretation bias. The results suggest that fear appeals are unlikely to increase intentions to perform COVID-related mitigation measures.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Anesthesiology
Jonathan N. Davies, Ben Colagiuri, Louise Sharpe, Melissa A. Day
Summary: This study compared the effects of mindfulness and sham treatments on chronic pain, and found that improvements in pain unpleasantness may be driven by placebo effects rather than mindfulness-specific processes. These findings suggest that further research is needed to understand if mindfulness-specific effects emerge after longer durations of online training.
Article
Anesthesiology
Brydee Pickup, Louise Sharpe, Jemma Todd
Summary: Interpretation bias is more pronounced among individuals with endometriosis and is associated with pain interference in daily life. This study is the first to evidence biased interpretation styles among individuals with endometriosis and to show this bias is associated with pain interference.
Article
Oncology
Hannah Banks, Kyra Webb, Louise Sharpe, Joanne Shaw
Summary: This research aimed to explore the features and impact of caregiver fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) for cancer patients. Through qualitative analysis of 18 telephone interviews, the study identified three themes: fear of patient suffering, the need to protect the patient, and caregiver's sense of unpreparedness and uncertainty. The findings highlight the need for the development of theoretical models, instruments, and interventions specifically for caregiver FCR.
Review
Oncology
Kyra Webb, Louise Sharpe, Phyllis Butow, Haryana Dhillon, Robert Zachariae, Nina Moller Tauber, Mia Skytte O'Toole, Joanne Shaw
Summary: This study compared the levels of fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) between cancer survivors and caregivers through a meta-analysis. It also examined the relationship between caregiver FCR, depression, and anxiety, and evaluated the psychometric properties of caregiver FCR measures. The results showed that caregivers reported FCR levels similar to survivors, with around 48% of caregivers reporting clinically significant FCR levels. There was a strong correlation between anxiety and depression and medium correlation with survivor FCR. The existing measurement tools for caregiver FCR mostly relied on survivor conceptualizations and lacked validation.
Article
Psychology, Clinical
D. Coutts-Bain, Louise Sharpe, H. Russell
Summary: Death anxiety can predict fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) and fear of progression (FOP) in people with ovarian cancer, adding to the variance beyond known theoretical predictors. Death anxiety is more strongly associated with FOP than FCR, and it predicts a small but significant unique variance in both fears. These findings highlight the importance of death anxiety in understanding and treating FCR and FOP.
JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL MEDICINE
(2023)
Article
Oncology
Lauren C. Heathcote, Sarah N. Webster, Nele Loecher, Sheri L. Spunt, Pamela Simon, Poorva Pradhan, Daelin Coutts-Bain, Louise Sharpe, Perri R. Tutelman, Laura E. Simons
Summary: The study developed and validated the Bodily Threat Monitoring Scale (BTMS), which assesses how individuals monitor and interpret uncertain symptoms in relation to the fear of cancer recurrence. The BTMS demonstrated good psychometric properties and showed associations with relevant constructs, such as anxiety sensitivity and help-seeking behaviors.
Article
Anesthesiology
Louise Sharpe, Emma Blaisdale Jones, Poorva Pradhan, Jemma Todd, Ben Colagiuri
Summary: This study aimed to test the efficacy of CBM-I for people with chronic pain, and the impact of adding psychoeducation. The results showed that CBM-I improved pain interference, pain intensity, and fear of movement. Psychoeducation also had a positive effect on pain interference. Overall, CBM-I showed promise in pain management, but further research is needed to explore the role of psychoeducation. Rating: 8 out of 10.
Article
Psychology, Clinical
Louise Sharpe, Rachel Menzies, Bethany Richmond, Jemma Todd, Carolyn Maccann, Joanne Shaw
Summary: The study developed and validated a novel transdiagnostic measure, the Worries About Recurrence and Progression Scale (WARPS), which proved to be a valid and reliable tool in measuring transdiagnostic worries about recurrence and progression.
BRITISH JOURNAL OF HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Oncology
Kyra Webb, Louise Sharpe, Hayley Russell, Joanne Shaw
Summary: This study explored the experiences of fear of cancer recurrence (FCR) among caregivers of ovarian cancer patients. Through semi-structured telephone interviews and an online survey, the study found that caregivers have worries and concerns about cancer recurrence or progression, which are different from those of survivors.