Attentional Bias Modification in People with Chronic Pain: A Proof of Concept Study

Abstract

The purpose of this proof of concept study was to explore the role of attentional bias modification (ABM) in improving clinically relevant outcomes in chronic pain. Eight participants with chronic pain completed eight ABM sessions, which featured a modified version of the visual-probe task implicitly training attention away from pain-related stimuli towards neutral stimuli. Training sessions included a variety of linguistic and pictorial pain-related stimuli, which were presented at two presentation times (500 and 1250 ms). Participants also completed a standard version of the visual-probe task pre- and post-ABM to assess changes in bias. The primary outcome measure was pain intensity, and secondary outcome measures were anxiety, depression severity and pain interference. Statistically and clinically significant change was shown pre- to post-ABM in pain intensity, anxiety, depression and pain interference. Attentional bias scores did not statistically differ across time. These results support the continued exploration of ABM in chronic pain and the modifications we made to the intervention (i.e. the inclusion of pictorial stimuli and a longer presentation time). Future research is needed to explore the optimal form of ABM and whether improvements are maintained over time.

Keywords:

• visual-probe task
• intervention
• ABM
• pain-related bias
• clinical change

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Dr Jin Zhang for developing visual-probe programmes used in this research and for her continued technical support.

The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.