title: 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.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Paediatric Clinical Psychology , Royal Hospital for Sick Children, NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde , Glasgow , Scotland.|b Department of Clinical and Health Psychology , School of Health in Social Science, University of Edinburgh , Edinburgh , Scotland.
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Lowther
authors.affiliation: b Department of Clinical and Health Psychology , School of Health in Social Science, University of Edinburgh , Edinburgh , Scotland.
authors.forename: Emily
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Newman
authors.affiliation: c Department of Paediatric Clinical Psychology , Andrew Lang Unit, Selkirk, NHS Borders , Edinburgh , Scotland.
authors.forename: Kirstin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sharp
authors.affiliation: d Department of Respiratory and Sleep Medicine , Royal Hospital for Sick Children, NHS Lothian , Edinburgh , Scotland.
authors.forename: Ann
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: McMurray
mesh_terms: D001007:Anxiety / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D001249:Asthma / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology*; D000070379:Attentional Bias / Q000502:physiology*; D002648:Child; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time / Q000502:physiology
keywords: Anxiety; Asthma; Attentional bias; Children