title: A preliminary investigation of a novel training to target cognitive biases towards negative social stimuli in Anorexia Nervosa.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Patients with Anorexia Nervosa (AN) experience high levels of social difficulties and anxiety. These problems might be underpinned by negatively biased processing of social stimuli. The aim of this study was to examine the feasibility of using a novel Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) training to target information processing biases in patients with AN.
  
  
  METHODS
  Twenty-eight patients with AN completed a baseline and end of intervention assessment of mood and social appraisals. The CBM training consisted of 5 sessions and included an attentional probe task to train attention towards positive social stimuli and an ambiguous scenarios task to train benign or neutral interpretations of ambiguous social scenarios.
  
  
  RESULTS
  At baseline patients displayed an attention and interpretation bias towards negative social stimuli. At the end of intervention there was a medium sized increase in attention to positive faces and fewer negative interpretations of ambiguous social stimuli. There were also lower levels of anxiety and higher levels of self-compassion in response to a judgemental video clip.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The lack of a control group is the main limitation to this preliminary study as the changes obtained may have resulted from non-specific aspects of the inpatient treatment.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A novel CBM training is associated with more positive processing of social information in AN. It would be of interest to test the hypothesis that reducing cognitive biases towards social stimuli impacts on wider features of an eating disorder.
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychological Medicine, Section of Eating Disorders, The Basement, P059 103 Denmark Hill, London, SE5 8AF, UK. Electronic address: valentina.cardi@kcl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Valentina
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Cardi
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychological Medicine, Section of Eating Disorders, The Basement, P059 103 Denmark Hill, London, SE5 8AF, UK.
authors.forename: Mirko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Esposito
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, UK.
authors.forename: Geoff
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Bird
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychological Medicine, Section of Eating Disorders, The Basement, P059 103 Denmark Hill, London, SE5 8AF, UK.
authors.forename: Charlotte
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rhind
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Department of Psychosis Studies, UK.
authors.forename: Jenny
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Yiend
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychological Medicine, Section of Eating Disorders, The Basement, P059 103 Denmark Hill, London, SE5 8AF, UK.
authors.forename: Sylvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schifano
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Department of Psychology, UK.
authors.forename: Colette
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hirsch
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychological Medicine, Section of Eating Disorders, The Basement, P059 103 Denmark Hill, London, SE5 8AF, UK.
authors.forename: Janet
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Treasure
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000856:Anorexia Nervosa / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy*; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D001288:Attention; D015928:Cognitive Behavioral Therapy / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008875:Middle Aged; D012919:Social Behavior; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Anorexia Nervosa; Attentional probe; Cognitive Bias Modification; Faces; Interpretation