Leiden University Student Repository

Sanchez Saura, Ines (2022)

The Influence of Catastrophizing, Neuroticism and Anxiety on Attentional Bias Towards Itch

Master thesis | Psychology (MSc)

Itch is a common unpleasant sensation that comes with the urge to scratch. Itch draws our attention and can be adaptive to humans in order to alert individuals to potential threats. At the same time, itch can impair daily functioning and strongly disrupt an individual’s quality of life when it becomes chronic. Even though itch is a prevalent symptom, research investigating an attentional bias towards itch, the tendency to pay attention towards itch-related stimuli over other stimuli, is scarce. Findings in this field are mixed and the divergent results might be explained by individual characteristics. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the influence of individual characteristics; namely neuroticism, catastrophizing and anxiety, on attentional bias towards itch by conducting a secondary analysis. Results from seven similar studies examining an attentional bias towards itch and individual characteristics were analyzed using a multilevel modeling analysis. All these studies...Show moreItch is a common unpleasant sensation that comes with the urge to scratch. Itch draws our attention and can be adaptive to humans in order to alert individuals to potential threats. At the same time, itch can impair daily functioning and strongly disrupt an individual’s quality of life when it becomes chronic. Even though itch is a prevalent symptom, research investigating an attentional bias towards itch, the tendency to pay attention towards itch-related stimuli over other stimuli, is scarce. Findings in this field are mixed and the divergent results might be explained by individual characteristics. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the influence of individual characteristics; namely neuroticism, catastrophizing and anxiety, on attentional bias towards itch by conducting a secondary analysis. Results from seven similar studies examining an attentional bias towards itch and individual characteristics were analyzed using a multilevel modeling analysis. All these studies used the dot-probe task to measure an attentional bias towards itch-related information (words or pictures). Additionally, several self-report questionnaires were administered, which were related to the individual characteristics. A total of 577 healthy participants were included. Results did not indicate an attentional bias towards itch-related words or pictures. Also, the individual characteristics, neuroticism, catastrophizing and anxiety, did not influence one’s attentional bias towards itch. This secondary analysis was a first step in combining findings on attentional bias towards itch and exploring its relationship with individual characteristics. Further research is warranted to optimize attentional bias measures and conduct more studies that focus on the influence of individual characteristics and attentional bias towards itch.Show less

attention

attentional bias

itch

dot-probe task

individual characteristics

catastrophizing

neuroticism

anxiety

Author

Sanchez Saura, Ines

Faculty

Faculty of Social & Behavioural Sciences

Specialisation

Health and Medical Psychology

Supervisors

Becker, J.M.

ECTS Credits

20

Language

en