Fear reduction during in vivo exposure to blood-injection stimuli: distraction vs. attentional focus.
OBJECTIVE
This study extends Penfold and Page's (1999) finding that exposure plus distraction enhanced within-session fear reduction to a phobic stimulus by examining whether the within-session advantage could be replicated and translated into longer-term gains.


METHODS
To test the effects of distraction, participants were assigned randomly to one of three experimental conditions; exposure plus focusing, exposure plus distraction, or exposure alone.


METHODS
Blood-injection fearful participants (N = 48) were assigned randomly to receive 3 weekly sessions of 10-min exposure under one of the experimental conditions.


RESULTS
Consistent with the previous finding, exposure plus distraction showed the greatest within-session fear reduction. Participants in the exposure plus distraction condition also reported the greatest reduction in fear between sessions, at post-treatment, and at 1-month follow-up. Furthermore, participants in the exposure plus distraction condition reported continued increases in perceived control over their anxiety during the month following the exposure sessions.


CONCLUSIONS
The data suggest that conversation is a distraction that can increase perceived control over anxiety and assists anxiety reduction.
Oliver
Naomi S
NS
Department of Psychology, University of Western Australia, Australia.
Page
Andrew C
AC
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001007:Anxiety / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention; D001769:Blood; D005239:Fear; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D007267:Injections; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D011897:Random Allocation