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Attentional Bias in Children with Asthma with and without Anxiety Disorders

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Abstract

Children with asthma have a high prevalence of anxiety disorders, however, very little is known about the mechanisms that confer vulnerability for anxiety in this population. This study investigated whether children with asthma and anxiety disorders display attentional biases towards threatening stimuli, similar to what has been seen in children with anxiety disorders more generally. We also examined the relationships between attentional biases and anxiety symptomatology and asthma control for children with asthma. Ninety-three children, aged 8–13, took part in the study and were recruited into one of four conditions (asthma/anxiety, asthma, anxiety, control). Asthma was medically confirmed and anxiety was assessed through clinical interview. We used self- and parent-report questionnaires to measure child asthma (ATAQ) and anxiety (SCAS, CASI) variables. Participants completed a visual dot-probe task designed to measure attentional bias towards two types of stimuli: asthma related words and general threat words, as well as tasks to assess reading ability and attentional control. Results showed that attentional biases did not differ between the groups, although children with anxiety disorders displayed poorer attentional control. A significant correlation was found between poor asthma control and an attentional bias of asthma stimuli. While we found no evidence that anxiety disorders in children with asthma were associated with threat- or asthma-related attentional biases, preliminary evidence suggested that children with poor asthma control displayed biases towards asthma-specific stimuli. Future research is needed to explore whether these attentional biases are adaptive.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Australian Gifted Support Centre, The Scots College and the staff working at the respiratory outpatient clinics at The Sydney Children’s Hospital Network for assisting us with recruitment.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Psychology, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia

    Joanne Dudeney, Louise Sharpe, Gemma Sicouri, Sarah Lorimer & Caroline Hunt

  2. eCentreClinic, Department of Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

    Blake F. Dear

  3. School of Women’s and Children’s Health, UNSW Medicine, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

    Adam Jaffe

  4. Department of Respiratory Medicine, Sydney Children’s Hospital Randwick, Sydney, Australia

    Adam Jaffe

  5. The Children’s Hospital at Westmead Clinical School, Discipline of Paediatrics and Child Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

    Hiran Selvadurai

  6. Department of Respiratory Medicine, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Sydney, Australia

    Hiran Selvadurai

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  1. Joanne Dudeney
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  2. Louise Sharpe
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  3. Gemma Sicouri
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  4. Sarah Lorimer
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  5. Blake F. Dear
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  6. Adam Jaffe
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  7. Hiran Selvadurai
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  8. Caroline Hunt
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Correspondence to Joanne Dudeney.

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Dudeney, J., Sharpe, L., Sicouri, G. et al. Attentional Bias in Children with Asthma with and without Anxiety Disorders. J Abnorm Child Psychol 45, 1635–1646 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-017-0261-1

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