Cross-cultural study of information processing biases in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome:comparison of Dutch and UK chronic fatigue patients

Purpose: This study aims to replicate a UK study, with a Dutch sample to explore whether attention and interpretation biases and general attentional control deficits in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), are similar across populations and cultures. Methods: Thirty eight Dutch CFS participants were compared to 52 CFS and 51 healthy participants recruited from the UK. Participants completed self-report measures of symptoms, functioning and mood; as well as three experimental tasks (i) Visual-Probe task measuring attentional bias to illness (somatic symptoms and disability) versus neutral words, (ii... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Hughes, Alicia
Hirsch, Colette R.
Nikolaus, Stephanie
Chalder, Trudie
Knoop, Hans
Moss-Morris, Rona
Dokumenttyp: Artikel
Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
Reihe/Periodikum: Hughes , A , Hirsch , C R , Nikolaus , S , Chalder , T , Knoop , H & Moss-Morris , R 2017 , ' Cross-cultural study of information processing biases in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome : comparison of Dutch and UK chronic fatigue patients ' , International Journal of Behavioral Medicine , pp. 1-6 . https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-017-9682-z
Schlagwörter: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / Attentional bias / Interpretation bias / Attentional control / cross-cultural study
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-28995039
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
Powered By: BASE
Link(s) : https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en/publications/dc14f31a-407a-43ea-b1d0-87a53b7608a5

Purpose: This study aims to replicate a UK study, with a Dutch sample to explore whether attention and interpretation biases and general attentional control deficits in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), are similar across populations and cultures. Methods: Thirty eight Dutch CFS participants were compared to 52 CFS and 51 healthy participants recruited from the UK. Participants completed self-report measures of symptoms, functioning and mood; as well as three experimental tasks (i) Visual-Probe task measuring attentional bias to illness (somatic symptoms and disability) versus neutral words, (ii) interpretive bias task measuring positive versus somatic interpretations of ambiguous information and (iii) the Attention Network Test measuring general attentional control. Results: Compared to controls, Dutch and UK participants with CFS showed a significant attentional bias for illness-related words and were significantly more likely to interpret ambiguous information in a somatic way. These effects were not moderated by attentional control. There were no significant differences between the Dutch and UK CFS groups on attentional bias, interpretation bias or attentional control scores. Conclusions: This study replicated the main findings of the UK study, with a Dutch CFS population; indicating that across cultures and populations people with CFS demonstrate biases in how somatic information is attended to and interpreted. These illness-specific biases appear to be unrelated to general attentional control deficits.