title: Attentional biases to pain and social threat in children with recurrent abdominal pain.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To test whether children with recurrent abdominal pain (RAP) exhibit subliminal (nonconscious) and supraliminal (conscious) attentional biases to pain-related words, and to determine correlates of these biases. Previous research indicates that individuals attend to disorder-relevant threat words, and in this study, attentional biases to disorder-relevant threat (pain), alternative threat (social threat), and neutral words were compared.
  
  
  METHODS
  Participants were 59 children with RAP who completed a computer-based attentional bias task. Participants and their parents also completed questionnaires measuring pain, somatic complaints, anxiety/depression, and body vigilance.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Children with RAP showed attentional biases toward subliminal pain-related words and attentional biases away from supraliminal pain-related words. Participants' attentional biases to social threat-related words were marginally significant and also reflected subliminal attention and supraliminal avoidance. Attentional biases were related to parent and child reports of pain, body vigilance, and anxiety/depression.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Children with RAP show nonconscious attention to and conscious avoidance of threat-related words. Their attentional biases relate to individual differences in symptom severity. Implications for models of pediatric pain and future studies are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Stanford University School of Medicine, 401 Quarry Road, Stanford, California 94305, USA. mboyer@post.harvard.edu
authors.forename: Margaret C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Boyer
authors.forename: Bruce E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Compas
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Stanger
authors.forename: Richard B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Colletti
authors.forename: Brian S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Konik
authors.forename: Sara B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Morrow
authors.forename: Alexandra H
authors.initials: AH
authors.lastname: Thomsen
mesh_terms: D015746:Abdominal Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D000293:Adolescent; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001288:Attention; D001362:Avoidance Learning; D002648:Child; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time; D012919:Social Behavior; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation