Association of attentional bias with negative cognition and childhood trauma in somatic symptom disorders / 中华行为医学与脑科学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective:To investigate whether attentional bias exists in somatic symptom disorders and its correlation with negative cognition and childhood trauma.Methods:Totally 33 patients with physical disorder (physical disorder group) and 33 healthy controls (healthy control group) who met the inclusion and exclusion criteria in the outpatient or inpatient department of Sichuan Provincial People's Hospital were collected as the research objects.The patient health questionnaire (PHQ-15) and somatic system disorder-B criteria scale (SSD-12) were used to evaluate the severity of the disease, the childhood trauma scale (CTQ) was used to evaluate the childhood trauma experience, and the dot probe task edited by E-prime software was used to measure the reaction time.The repeated measurement variance analysis and independent sample t-test were used to compare the attention bias of the two groups, and the Pearson correlation analysis was used to analyze the correlation between attention bias, disease severity and childhood trauma. Results:The reaction time to negative pictures((510.86±124.72)ms) was longer than that to positive pictures ((504.21±117.21)ms, F=9.10, P<0.05) for physical disorder group and healthy control group, and the negative orienting index(5.22±28.02) in physical disorder group was significantly higher than that in healthy control group(-12.62±32.33)( t=2.397, P<0.05). Disengaging index to positive emotions in SSD patients was positively correlated with their negative cognition of the disease ( r=0.403, P<0.05), and the disengaging index to negative emotions in SSD patients was negatively correlated with emotional neglect ( r=-0.399, P<0.05). Conclusion:Reducing the occurrence of childhood trauma and correcting patients' negative cognition may help to improve the attention bias of somatic symptom disorders.