Gangemi Amelia, Gragnani Andrea, Dahò Margherita, Buonanno Carlo
Dipartimento di Scienze Cognitive, University of Messina, Via Concezione, 6/8, 98121- Messina, Italy.
Scuola di Specializzazione in Psicoterapia Cognitiva (SPC), Viale Castro Pretorio, 116, 00185 - Roma, Italy.
Clin Neuropsychiatry. 2019 Jun;16(3):149-155.
Our study was aimed at evaluating the efficacy and stability of the "Pie Technique", "Cumulative Probability" and "Inverted Pyramid", cognitive techniques applied in a clinical context to reduce overestimation of the probability of threatening events.
319 healthy participants were randomly assigned to one of 8 groups. Groups differed on the level of trait anxiety (high vs. low), and on the cognitive techniques they were to receive (Pie Technique, Cumulative Probability, Inverted Pyramid, Control task). All groups were exposed to an intervention aimed at reassigning the initial probability estimate.
In both high and low trait anxiety individuals, all the techniques successfully produced a statistically significant reduction in the estimation of the perceived probability, while no significant outcome was found in the control task group. This effect was significantly maintained at a 4 week follow up.
Our study shows that the Pie Technique, the Cumulative Probability and the Inverted Pyramid reduce the estimation of the perceived probability of negative events occurring in both high and low trait anxiety individuals. This effect was considerably maintained at a 4 week follow up. The reduction should mainly be attributed to the technique's power in contrasting the cognitive mechanism of hyper-focalization. The present study takes into account only general threatening events, and not threats specifically related to the different disorders. Moreover, it demonstrates that all the techniques are useful to reduce danger overestimation but in a group of non-clinical individuals. We can't thus generalize our results to anxious patients.
我们的研究旨在评估“饼图技术”“累积概率”和“倒金字塔”等认知技术在临床环境中应用时，降低对威胁事件概率高估的有效性和稳定性。
319名健康参与者被随机分配到8组中的一组。各组在特质焦虑水平（高与低）以及他们将接受的认知技术（饼图技术、累积概率、倒金字塔、控制任务）方面存在差异。所有组都接受了旨在重新评估初始概率估计的干预。
在高特质焦虑和低特质焦虑个体中，所有技术都成功地使感知概率估计在统计学上显著降低，而在控制任务组中未发现显著结果。在4周的随访中，这种效果得到了显著维持。
我们的研究表明，饼图技术、累积概率和倒金字塔技术降低了高特质焦虑和低特质焦虑个体中对负面事件发生的感知概率估计。在4周的随访中，这种效果得到了相当程度的维持。这种降低主要应归因于该技术在对抗过度聚焦认知机制方面的能力。本研究仅考虑了一般威胁事件，而非与不同疾病具体相关的威胁。此外，它表明所有这些技术都有助于降低危险高估，但针对的是一组非临床个体。因此，我们不能将结果推广到焦虑症患者身上。
