NCT04365972

Attention Bias Modification for Reducing Health Anxiety During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Attention Bias Modification for Reducing Health Anxiety During the Coronavirus Pandemic: An Open Pilot Trial

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 20 (actual)
• Sponsor: Tel Aviv University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

The outbreak of the 2019 Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is a major stressor leading to increased levels of anxiety, and specifically, an excessive fear of being infected and affected by the disease among major parts of the population. At the same time, the access to mental health services is limited due to the lockdown policy applied in many countries worldwide, warranting the development of home-delivered interventions aimed at reducing stress and anxiety symptoms. Attention Bias modification (ABM) has been found to be an efficacious computerized intervention to reduce anxiety symptoms. In this open pilot trial, participants reporting on elevated levels of health anxiety concerning the COVID-19 epidemic will receive one session of ABM over 5 consecutive days (5 sessions total). Symptoms of health anxiety, state anxiety, generalized anxiety, and depression will be measured at baseline and post-treatment.

Conditions

• Anxiety

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Attention Bias Modification (ABM)	A home-delivered version of ABM will be administered in this open trial. ABM will be comprised of 5 sessions with a variation of the dot-probe task in which the target probe always replaces the neutral stimuli to induce diversion of attention away from threat. This condition was found effective in reducing anxiety symptoms.

Timeline

• Start date: 2020-04-23
• Primary completion: 2020-04-30
• Completion: 2020-04-30
• First posted: 2020-04-28
• Last updated: 2020-05-08

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Israel