Biomedical subjects

Eni S Becker

Publications and source records attributed to Eni S Becker.

15 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Epidemiology of specific phobia subtypes: findings from the Dresden Mental Health Study.

This study determined the prevalence, age of onset, comorbidity, and impairment associated with specific phobia subtypes in the community. Data were drawn from the Dresden Mental Health Study (N=2064), a representative community-based sample of young women in Dresden, Germany. The lifetime prevalence of any specific phobia was 12.8%, with subtypes ranging in prevalence between 0.2% (vomiting, infections) and 5.0% (animals). There were significant differences in the mean age of onset of specific phobias. Significant differences in comorbidity patterns also emerged between subtypes. No significant differences were found in level of impairment associated with the subtypes. The findings suggest that specific phobias are common among young women and that they differ in prevalence, associated comorbidity, and mean age of onset. These data suggest significant differences in the phenomenology and clinical significance of specific phobia subtypes.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Approach and avoidance in fear of spiders.

We examined attitudes towards spiders by employing an Approach-Avoidance Task, in which participants respond to pictures by pulling a joystick towards themselves or by pushing it away from themselves. For spider fearfuls, this stimulus-response assignment is either compatible (push spiders away) or incompatible (pull spiders closer). Specific compatibility effects were found: compared to non-anxious controls and control pictures, highly spider fearful participants responded to spider pictures more quickly by pushing than by pulling, even when picture contents was task-irrelevant. Moreover, compatibility effects predicted fear-related behavior independently of questionnaires. Potential applications, extensions, and limitations of the findings are discussed.

Animals↗

PubMed2006

Recovery from social phobia in the community and its predictors: data from a longitudinal epidemiological study.

The present longitudinal study aimed to determine rate of natural recovery from DSM-IV social phobia in the community and to examine predictors of recovery. Data were derived from the Dresden Predictor Study of a representative sample of 1396 young German women. The participants completed a diagnostic interview and self-report questionnaires at two survey points approximately 1.5 years apart. Of the 91 women with social phobia at baseline 64% were at least partially recovered and 36% showed full recovery from social phobia at follow-up, defined as absence of any of the DSM-IV criteria of social phobia. Predictors of recovery from social phobia were: being employed, no lifetime depression, fewer than three lifetime psychiatric disorders, less psychopathology, less anxiety sensitivity, fewer daily hassles, and better mental health. These results show that rates of recovery from social phobia are relatively high in community and that less stress and internal psychological problems play an important role in recovery from social phobia.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Subtypes of social phobia: are they of any use?

This study investigated the existence of DSM-IV social phobia subtype models in the community. Data came from the Dresden Predictor Study of a representative sample of 1877 German women (aged 18-24 years) who completed a diagnostic interview and filled out various self-report questionnaires. The number of feared social situations was distributed continuously without a clear-cut for delineation of subtypes and significantly increased functional impairment, comorbidity, subjective need for psychotherapy, seeking psychotherapeutic help and dysfunctional attitudes, and decreased social support and mental health. Subtype models based on the number (1, 2-4 and >4) and type ('formal speaking fear' versus 'other fears') of social fear did not have extra value above the continuum model of social phobia. The heterogeneity within social phobia has to be seen as a continuum of severity of social phobia, with a greater number of feared situations associated with more functional, social and psychological disability.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

Spider fearful individuals attend to threat, then quickly avoid it: evidence from eye movements.

According to cognitive models of anxiety, anxiety patients exhibit an early reflexive attentional bias toward threat stimuli, which may be followed by intentional avoidance of these stimuli. To determine the time course of attentional vigilance and avoidance, the authors conducted an eye-tracking study in which 22 highly spider fearful participants (SFs) and 23 nonanxious control participants (NACs) studied groups of 4 pictures (spider, butterfly, dog, and cat). The authors found that the very first fixation was on a spider picture more often in SFs than in NACs. However, SFs quickly moved their eyes away from the spider they had fixated first, yielding shorter gaze durations than NACs. Afterward, SFs exhibited shorter gaze durations on spiders than NACs for the rest of the 1-min presentation time. This early reflexive attentional bias toward threat followed by avoidance of threat may explain earlier failures to find attentional biases in anxiety.

Animals↗

PubMed2006

From fear to love: individual differences in implicit spider associations.

The Implicit Association Test (IAT) was used to investigate automatic fear associations in fear of spiders. Fear associations toward spiders were measured among spider fearful and nonfearful participants (Experiment 1) as well as among nonfearfuls and spider enthusiasts (Experiment 2). It was shown that the IAT is sensitive to personal automatic fear associations and therefore distinguishes between high-fearful, nonfearful, and enthusiastic participants. Moreover, implicit spider associations measured by the IAT predicted avoidance behavior beyond self-reports. The results of Experiment 2 provide additional support for the argument that implicit spider associations are different from general stereotypes or knowledge about spiders.

Adult↗

PubMed2006

Spiders crawl easily through the bottleneck: visual working memory for negative stimuli.

The special status of spiders in the attentional bottleneck and visual working memory (VWM) was studied. 23 spider-fearfuls (SF) and 23 non-anxious controls (NACs) participated in a serial VWM-task. Each trial showed a 4 x 4 matrix of images and 5 of these were subsequently cued for 150 ms each. Afterwards, one of the 16 displayed images was hidden and probed. The spider image was included in the string of 5 cued images, among the 11 uncued items, or not at all. For both groups, memory was better for cued spiders than for other cued items. SFs also showed improved memory for uncued spiders. The relevance of the results for theories of attention and cognitive models of phobias are discussed.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2005

Activation and measurement of threat associations in fear of spiders: an application of the Extrinsic Affective Simon Task.

The Extrinsic Affective Simon Task (DeHouwer, EAST; Experimental Psychol. 50 (2003) 77) was used to assess how different context conditions lead to differential activation of cognitive schemata in anxiety. Participants completed two identical EASTs, in which ambiguous target words (e.g., legs, net) were categorized together with pleasant words and unpleasant, fear-related words. Each EAST was preceded by the presentation of pictures, activating either a 'human' concept or a 'spider' concept. Results indicated that spider fearful participants showed threat associations towards the target words, but only when the spider concept was primed. Non-fearful participants did not show threat associations with either type of priming. We conclude that impact of threat associations depends on the activated context, and that the EAST is suitable for the assessment of fear associations and their current activation level.

Animals↗

PubMed2005

A comparison of attentional biases and memory biases in women with social phobia and major depression.

Cognitive processes play an important role in the etiology and maintenance of anxiety and depression. Current theories differ, however, in their predictions regarding the occurrence of attentional biases and memory biases in depression and anxiety. To allow for a systematic comparison of disorders and cognitive processes, 117 women (35 with generalized social phobia, 27 with major depression, and 55 healthy controls) participated in a test of visual attention (visual search), an explicit memory test (free recall), and an implicit memory test (anagram solving). Both clinical groups exhibited attentional biases for disorder-related words, whereas only depressed participants showed clear evidence of explicit and implicit memory biases. The implications of these results for competing theories are discussed.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

Speeded detection and increased distraction in fear of spiders: evidence from eye movements.

Anxiety patients exhibit attentional biases toward threat, which have often been demonstrated as increased distractibility by threatening stimuli. In contrast, speeded detection of threat has rarely been shown. Therefore, the authors studied both phenomena in 3 versions of a visual search task while eye movements were recorded continuously. Spider-fearful individuals and nonanxious control participants participated in a target search task, an odd-one-out search task, and a category search task. Evidence for disorder-specific increased distraction by threat was found in all tasks, whereas speeded threat detection did not occur in the target search task. The implications of these findings for cognitive theories of anxiety are discussed, particularly in relation to the concept of disengagement from threat.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Drug use patterns in young German women and association with mental disorders.

BACKGROUND: There is a lack of data about drug use patterns in young women. Mental disorders may influence those drug use patterns. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate drug use patterns (prescribed drugs, self-medication) in general and in relation to the prevalence rates of mental disorders in young German women. METHODS: A total of 2064 women (18-24 y old), obtained in a random clustered sample, were asked about their actual and former medication use. Moreover, a structured psychological interview (Diagnostic Interview for Mental Disorders) was conducted with each woman to evaluate the prevalence of mental disorders (according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition). RESULTS: Oral contraceptives (55.9%), thyroid preparations (7.1%), respiratory system drugs (9.4%), and nervous system drugs (8%) were the most commonly used medications. Only 10% of the women with one or more mental disorders used psychotropic medication. As expected, women with mental disorders were significantly more likely to use antidepressants and psycholeptic agents (ie, sedatives/hypnotics, antipsychotics) than were women without any mental disorder. However, there were no significant differences in use of pain medication. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study indicate an apparently inadequate supply of drugs acting on the nervous system for women with mental disorders in Germany. Further studies on different age and gender groups are needed. It is important to evaluate the prevalence of diseases and drug use at the same time so as to identify deficits in drug therapy and optimize prescription and self-medication use.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2004

Age of traumatisation as a predictor of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression in young women.

BACKGROUND: Findings in developmental psychopathology suggest that traumatisation in childhood may increase the risk of both post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depressive disorder, whereas traumatisation in adolescence is more likely to lead to elevated PTSD risk. AIMS: To estimate the impact of traumatisation in childhood or adolescence in a community sample. METHOD: A representative sample of 1966 young women from Dresden aged 18-45 years were interviewed for occurrence of traumatic events and the onset of PTSD and major depression. The sample was subdivided into a childhood trauma group (trauma up to age 12 years) and an adolescent trauma group (trauma from age 13 years). RESULTS: A quarter of all participants reported traumatic events meeting the DSM AI criterion. In the childhood group conditional risks for PTSD and major depressive disorder were 17.0% and 23.3%, respectively, compared with risks of 13.3% and 6.5%, respectively, in the adolescent group. In 29% of those with PTSD, major depression was also present. CONCLUSIONS: The risk of developing major depressive disorder after traumatisation in childhood is approximately equal to the risk of developing PTSD. After age 13 years, the risk of PTSD is greater than the risk of major depression after traumatisation.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2003

Selective memory and memory deficits in depressed inpatients.

We investigated memory impairment and mood-congruent memory bias in depression, using an explicit memory test and an implicit one. Thirty-six severely depressed inpatients that fulfilled DSM-IV criteria for major depressive disorder and 36 healthy controls matched for sex, age, and educational level participated in the study. Explicit memory was assessed with a free recall task and implicit memory with an anagram solution task. Results showed that depressed and controls differed in explicit memory performance, depending on the amount of cognitive distraction between incidental learning and testing. Implicit memory was not affected. In addition, severely depressed patients showed a mood-congruent memory bias in implicit memory but not in explicit memory. The complex pattern of results is discussed with regard to relevant theories of depression.

Adult↗

PubMed2003

Selective attention in anxiety: distraction and enhancement in visual search.

According to cognitive models of anxiety, anxiety patients exhibit an attentional bias towards threat, manifested as greater distractibility by threat stimuli and enhanced detection of them. Both phenomena were studied in two experiments, using a modified visual search task, in which participants were asked to find single target words (GAD-related, speech-related, neutral, or positive) hidden in matrices made up of distractor words (also GAD-related, speech-related, neutral, or positive). Generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) patients, social phobia (SP) patients afraid of giving speeches, and healthy controls participated in the visual search task. GAD patients were slowed by GAD-related distractor words but did not show statistically reliable evidence of enhanced detection of GAD-related target words. SP patients showed neither distraction nor enhancement effects. These results extend previous findings of attentional biases observed with other experimental paradigms.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2002

Screening for anxiety in an epidemiological sample: predictive accuracy of questionnaires.

The study examined the predictive accuracy of selected questionnaires when screening for anxiety in a representative epidemiological sample of young female adults (N = 1877). All participants were diagnosed using a structured diagnostic interview. Anxiety questionnaires included global as well as specific measures (Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Symptom Checklist, Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI), Fear Questionnaire (FQ), Mobility Inventory (MI)). Sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive power were computed for two screening decisions: (1) identifying any anxiety disorder or (2) identifying a specific anxiety disorder (agoraphobia) within the total sample and the clinical subsample. Due to naturalistic (low) base rates in epidemiological samples, diagnostic indices were lower than those previously reported. However, questionnaire data proved useful when a specific disorder was targeted (agoraphobia) and specific symptoms were operationalized.

Adolescent↗