Hughes Alicia M, Hirsch Colette R, Nikolaus Stephanie, Chalder Trudie, Knoop Hans, Moss-Morris Rona
Psychology Department, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
Expert Centre for Chronic Fatigue, Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Int J Behav Med. 2018 Feb;25(1):49-54. doi: 10.1007/s12529-017-9682-z.
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.
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.
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.
This study replicated the main findings of the UK study, with a Dutch CFS population, indicating that across these two cultures, 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.
本研究旨在重复一项英国的研究，以荷兰样本探究慢性疲劳综合征（CFS）患者的注意力和解释偏差以及一般注意力控制缺陷在不同人群和文化中是否相似。
将38名荷兰CFS参与者与从英国招募的52名CFS参与者和51名健康参与者进行比较。参与者完成了症状、功能和情绪的自我报告测量，以及三项实验任务：（i）视觉探测任务，测量对疾病（躯体症状和残疾）与中性词的注意力偏差；（ii）解释偏差任务，测量对模糊信息的积极与躯体解释；（iii）注意力网络测试，测量一般注意力控制。
与对照组相比，荷兰和英国的CFS参与者对与疾病相关的词语表现出显著的注意力偏差，并且更有可能以躯体方式解释模糊信息。这些效应不受注意力控制的调节。荷兰和英国CFS组在注意力偏差、解释偏差或注意力控制分数上没有显著差异。
本研究以荷兰CFS人群重复了英国研究的主要发现，表明在这两种文化中，CFS患者在躯体信息的关注和解释方式上存在偏差。这些特定于疾病的偏差似乎与一般注意力控制缺陷无关。
