To pay attention or not: The associations between attentional bias towards negative emotional information and anxiety, guilt feelings, and experiential avoidance in dementia family caregivers
Open accessAbstract
Caring for a relative with dementia has been linked to negative consequences for caregivers' psychological health, such as anxiety or guilt. Cognitive theories of psychopathology propose that attentional bias towards negative stimuli contribute to the development and maintenance of emotional disorders and clinical symptomatology. However, attentional bias has scarcely been explored in dementia family caregivers. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between attentional bias and anxiety symptomatology, guilt feelings, and experiential avoidance in a sample of dementia family caregivers. Participants were 226 dementia family caregivers. Attentional bias was measured using a novel priming adaptation of the dot-probe task. The sample was divided into high and low anxiety symptomatology, guilt feelings, and experiential avoidance groups. The results revealed two opposite patterns of emotional information processing in dementia family caregivers. While anxiety was found to be associated with an attentional preference for negative information, experiential avoidance was related to attentional avoidance of this information. Although guilt was also related to an attentional preference for negative information, this relationship was no longer significant when controlling for anxiety levels. These inflexible attentional patterns may have negative clinical consequences, given that in both cases relevant information necessary for adaptive coping with the stressful situation of caregiving may be unattended to or omitted.
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Some studies report weak correlations between experiential avoidance and anxiety symptoms among family carers of people with dementia, suggesting a lack of predictive effect of experiential avoidance alone on anxiety symptoms.
“some studies reporting weak correlations between experiential avoidance and anxiety symptoms among family carers of people with dementia (Cabrera et al., 2022; Lappalainen et al., 2021; Losada et al., 2014), suggesting a lack of predictive effect of experiential avoidance alone on anxiety symptoms.”
From The role of experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion in the development of anxiety symptoms among family carers of people with dementia (2024) · cites this paper as Cabrera et al., 2022
The weak correlation between experiential avoidance in caregiving and anxiety symptoms is consistent with previous studies conducted with family carers.
“which is consistent with the findings of previous studies conducted with family carers (Cabrera et al., 2022; Lappalainen et al., 2021; Ma ´rquez-Gonza ´lez et al., 2018).”
From The role of experiential avoidance and cognitive fusion in the development of anxiety symptoms among family carers of people with dementia (2024) · cites this paper as Cabrera et al., 2022
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- Authors
- Cabrera, I., Márquez-González, M., Gallego-Alberto, L., Pedroso-Chaparro, M. D. S., Barrera-Caballero, S., & Losada, A.
- Affiliations
- Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (ES)
- Department of Biological and Health Psychology, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
- Department of Psychology, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, Madrid, Spain
- Corresponding author
- Cabrera, Isabel
- ORCID
- Venue
- Aging & Mental Health
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2021-01-13
- Volume
- 26
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 328-336
- ISSN
- 1360-7863 (ISSN-L)
- 1364-6915
- OpenAlex
- W3118947897
- Cited by
- 9
- References
- 44
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 1.43
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Locations
- Aging & Mental Health (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Biblos-e Archivo (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid) (submittedVersion)
- BURJC Digital (King Juan Carlos University) (submittedVersion)
- Hispana (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Comunidad de Madrid
- Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (PSI2015-65152-C2-2-R, PSI 2015-65152-C2-1-R)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Psychiatry and Mental health › Dementia and Cognitive Impairment Research
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Anxiety, Depression, Psychometrics, Treatment, Cognitive Processes
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Mindfulness and Compassion Interventions
- Keywords
- attentional bias, anxiety, guilt, experiential avoidance, dot-probe task, priming, emotional processing, caregiver stress
- MeSH terms
- Attentional Bias, Anxiety, Dementia, Emotions, Guilt, Humans, Caregivers
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