Citation

Salum GA, Mogg K, Bradley BP, Gadelha A, Pan P, Tamanaha AC, Moriyama T, Graeff-Martins AS, Jarros RB, Polanczyk G, do Rosário MC, Leibenluft E, Rohde LAP, Manfro GG, Pine DS. Psychol. Med. 2013; 43(4): 733-745.

Affiliation

National Institute of Developmental Psychiatry for Children and Adolescents (INCT-CNPq), Brazil.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2013, Cambridge University Press)

DOI

10.1017/S0033291712001651

PMID

22850475

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Preliminary research implicates threat-related attention biases in paediatric anxiety disorders. However, major questions exist concerning diagnostic specificity, effects of symptom-severity levels, and threat-stimulus exposure durations in attention paradigms. This study examines these issues in a large, community school-based sample. Method A total of 2046 children (ages 6-12 years) were assessed using the Development and Well Being Assessment (DAWBA), Childhood Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and dot-probe tasks. Children were classified based on presence or absence of 'fear-related' disorders, 'distress-related' disorders, and behavioural disorders. Two dot-probe tasks, which differed in stimulus exposure, assessed attention biases for happy-face and threat-face cues. The main analysis included 1774 children. RESULTS: For attention bias scores, a three-way interaction emerged among face-cue emotional valence, diagnostic group, and internalizing symptom severity (F=2.87, p<0.05). This interaction reflected different associations between internalizing symptom severity and threat-related attention bias across diagnostic groups. In children with no diagnosis (n=1411, mean difference=11.03, s.e.=3.47, df=1, p<0.001) and those with distress-related disorders (n=66, mean difference=10.63, s.e.=5.24, df=1, p<0.05), high internalizing symptoms predicted vigilance towards threat. However, in children with fear-related disorders (n=86, mean difference=-11.90, s.e.=5.94, df=1, p<0.05), high internalizing symptoms predicted an opposite tendency, manifesting as greater bias away from threat. These associations did not emerge in the behaviour-disorder group (n=211). CONCLUSIONS: The association between internalizing symptoms and biased orienting varies with the nature of developmental psychopathology. Both the form and severity of psychopathology moderates threat-related attention biases in children.

Language: en