title: The relationship between adolescents' pain catastrophizing and attention bias to pain faces is moderated by attention control.
abstract: This study considered the attentional functioning of adolescents with varying levels of pain catastrophizing. Specifically, we investigated the relationship between pain catastrophizing and attention bias to pain facial expressions. Furthermore, drawing on dual process models in the context of pain, we investigated the moderating role of attention control on this relationship. Adolescents (N = 73; age, 16-18 years) performed a dot-probe task in which facial expressions of pain and neutral expressions were presented for 100 milliseconds and 1250 milliseconds. Participants also completed self-report pain catastrophizing and attention control measures. We found that although there was no main effect of pain catastrophizing on attention bias towards pain faces, attention control did significantly moderate this relationship. Further analysis revealed that lower levels of attention control were significantly associated with increasing attentional vigilance towards pain faces only within high catastrophizing adolescents. In addition, we found that poorer attention control was related to increased attention bias for pain faces (regardless of pain catastrophizing level) when these faces were presented for relatively longer durations (ie, 1250 milliseconds) but not for short durations (ie, 100 milliseconds). This study supports a dual process model of attentional processes in pain, thus replicating previous findings within the psychopathology literature but extending them to the study of pain. Theoretical and clinical implications of our findings are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom Department of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium Centre for Pain Research, University of Bath, Bath, United Kingdom Oxford Centre for Children and Young People in Pain (OxCCYP), Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre, Oxford, United Kingdom Department of Psychology, King's College London, London, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Lauren C
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: Heathcote
authors.forename: Tine
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Vervoort
authors.forename: Christopher
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Eccleston
authors.forename: Elaine
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Fox
authors.forename: Konrad
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Jacobs
authors.forename: Dimitri M L
authors.initials: DML
authors.lastname: Van Ryckeghem
authors.forename: Jennifer Y F
authors.initials: JYF
authors.lastname: Lau
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D058443:Catastrophization / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000523:psychology*; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods
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