Itch is an unpleasant somatic sensation which acts as a danger signal for threatening stimuli on the skin. Attentional bias is the tendency to prioritize the processing of specific types of stimuli...Show moreItch is an unpleasant somatic sensation which acts as a danger signal for threatening stimuli on the skin. Attentional bias is the tendency to prioritize the processing of specific types of stimuli over others. The mind prioritizes threat-related stimuli over neutral stimuli, therefore an attentional bias towards itch is expected. Neuroticism is an individual characteristic that might influence attentional bias towards itch and could be defined as emotional instability, resulting in the tendency to ruminate, experience negative emotions and fear. Previous studies found mixed results regarding both the presence of attentional bias towards itch, and the relation between neuroticism and attentional bias towards itch in healthy participants. Therefore, the first aim was to examine the presence of attentional bias towards itch in healthy individuals. The second aim was to identify the relationship between neuroticism and attentional bias towards itch in healthy individuals. The design of this study is a secondary analysis and used the data from seven earlier studies. The 577 included participants were all healthy individuals between 18 and 35 years old. In order to examine the presence of attentional bias towards itch, the dot-probe task with neutral vs. itch-related words and/or pictures was used. Furthermore, the neuroticism subscale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire revised short scale (EPQ-RSS) was used to measure neuroticism. A multilevel analysis showed no attentional bias towards itch-related stimuli in healthy participants, t(4.941)=-1.252, p=0.266. Furthermore, the effect of neuroticism scores was not significant, indicating that higher neuroticism scores were not associated with more attentional bias towards itch, t(382.636)=-0.825, p=0.410. The inclusion of healthy participants only, the low neuroticism scores and the absence of itch-related goals in the current study could be a reason for not finding an attentional bias towards itch and the relation with neuroticism. However, given the fact that this study is a secondary analysis with a large sample size, it also has to be considered that there simply is no attentional bias towards itch in healthy participants. This study could be used as a guideline for future research, in order to further investigate the relationship between neuroticism and attentional bias towards itch.Show less
