Abstract
Recent etiopathogenic theories of gastrointestinal conditions state that information processing biases can be a possible major factor involved in the aetiology and maintenance of these conditions. This exploratory study investigated the role of attention biases (AB) towards symptoms-related cues in gastrointestinal patients with respect to symptom maintenance, simultaneously taking into consideration the role of irrational beliefs. We included 32 patients diagnosed with gastrointestinal conditions. Patients completed a battery of psychological tests and an experimental task aimed to measure the preferential attention processing of linguistic stimuli related to gastrointestinal symptoms when they compete for attention resources with neutral stimuli. AB was positively related to irrational beliefs [r(31) = .376, p = .037] and analgesics use [r(32) = .518, p = .002], but not to self-report gastrointestinal symptoms [r(30) = −.165, p = .382]. Irrational beliefs correlated with pain catastrophizing [r(31) = .373, p = .039], but not to gastrointestinal symptoms, pain intensity, visceral sensitivity or negative emotions; however, pain catastrophizing correlated with all of these. Taken together, our results suggest that core irrational beliefs action as general vulnerability factors that trigger specific implicit and explicit cognitive mechanisms (i.e., AB, pain catastrophizing) involved in the onset and maintenance of symptoms. Future experimental studies should test the robustness of these results in larger samples and aim to further advance our understanding of how cognitive factors interact and potentiate each other in generating and maintaining debilitating suffering.
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Notes
The neutral words used for practice phase were different from the neutral words used during bias assessment.
The lack of statistical significance may be a direct consequence of the small sample size.
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Acknowledgments
This work was possible due to the financial support of the Sectorial Operational Program for Human Resources Development 2007–2013, co-financed by the European Social Fund, under the Project Number POSDRU/159/1.5/S/132400 with the title “Young successful researchers—professional development in an international and interdisciplinary environment”.
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Mogoaşe, C., David, D. & Dumitraşcu, D.L. Irrational Beliefs and Attention Bias Towards Symptoms-Related Stimuli in Maintaining Gastrointestinal Symptoms: Results from a Pilot Study. J Rat-Emo Cognitive-Behav Ther 34, 100–113 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10942-015-0226-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10942-015-0226-7