Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 
 

Files

File List


30352.pdf (2.76 MB)

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

Attentional bias to school-related threat in pediatric chronic pain

Gibler, Robert C
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1522337321480884

Abstract Details

2018, MA, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: Psychology.
Pediatric chronic pain is associated with elevated school anxiety and functional disability. Attentional biases (ABs) are involved in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety and chronic pain, yet no studies have investigated ABs toward school-related threat. Participants with chronic pain and age- and gender-matched controls (n = 60) completed a novel variant of the dot-probe task, which included images pertaining to school-related academic threat, social threat, and general school contexts. ABs were measured at the subliminal (33ms) and supraliminal (1250ms) levels of processing. Participants and their parents also completed measures assessing school functioning and anxiety. Results revealed that neither group displayed an overall AB for school threat. Youth with chronic pain allocated attention toward academic threat at the subliminal level of processing, and away from threat at the supraliminal level. Pain participants showed a stronger AB for academic threat relative to controls at the 33ms presentation rate (d = .33). At the 1250ms rate, both groups allocated attention away from school threat and general school contexts. Exploratory analyses revealed no statistically significant differences between the groups. However, pain participants reporting the highest levels of school anxiety showed the strongest ABs toward academic threat relative to the low and medium school anxiety groups at the 33ms presentation rate. Additionally, high-anxious controls directed attention toward social threat, while pain participants allocated attention away from these stimuli (d = .94). At the 1250ms presentation rate, low-anxious pain participants oriented attention toward academic and social threat, while high-anxious pain participants allocated attention away from these images (d’s = .63 and .18, respectively). This suggests that youth with chronic pain reporting high levels of school anxiety might show differential patterns of ABs toward academic and social threat relative to those lower in school anxiety. Results suggest that attentional biases are an important avenue for continued research in pediatric pain.
Kristen Jastrowski Mano, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Quintino Mano, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
Cathleen Stough (Committee Member)
54 p.
Psychology
anxiety; attentional; bias; pediatric; chronic; pain

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Gibler, R. C. (2018). Attentional bias to school-related threat in pediatric chronic pain [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1522337321480884

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Gibler, Robert. Attentional bias to school-related threat in pediatric chronic pain. 2018. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1522337321480884.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Gibler, Robert. "Attentional bias to school-related threat in pediatric chronic pain." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2018. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1522337321480884

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

ucin1522337321480884
265
© 2018, some rights reserved.Creative Commons License Attentional bias to school-related threat in pediatric chronic pain by Robert C Gibler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Based on a work at etd.ohiolink.edu.
This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.