Abstract
Individuals who experienced traumatic work-related accidents frequently show cognitive deficits and biased processing of trauma-relevant information, which, in turn, could increase the risk of further accidents. The attention bias modification training (ABMT) is designed to reduce hypervigilance toward and enhance attentional disengagement from threat stimuli. The aim of the present study was to assess whether it is possible to implicitly reduce the attentional bias toward trauma-related stimuli through a single session of ABMT in individuals who experienced a traumatic occupational accident. Nineteen individuals who had experienced a traumatic work-related accident and 11 workers who never experienced a work accident (control group) underwent a preliminary assessment of cognitive performance (executive functions and sustained attention) and an evaluation of the attentional bias toward accident-related pictures by means of a dot-probe task. The results showed that injured workers performed more poorly than controls in tasks of executive functions and concentration abilities. Also, injured workers showed an attentional bias toward trauma reminders (i.e., faster reaction times to probes replacing trauma-related pictures). Injured workers were then randomly allocated to a single-session of ABMT (N = 10) or to an Attention Control Condition (ACC; N = 9). After the training, the dot-probe task was administered again to assess changes in the attentional bias toward trauma-relevant pictures. Injured workers who underwent the ABMT, but not those who underwent the ACC, showed a significant reduction of the attentional bias from pre- to post-training. Overall, these results support previous findings reporting an association between traumatic occupational accidents and cognitive dysfunctions. More importantly, these preliminary findings add to a growing body of evidence suggesting the effectiveness of a short ABMT in reducing the attentional bias after a traumatic workplace accident.
Highlights
European statistics have shown that in 2015 there have been close to 3.1 million non-fatal occupational accidents (Eurostat, 2017)
The analyses performed on questionnaire scores showed no significant differences between Injured workers and Controls in self-reported state and trait anxiety and depressive symptoms
Injured workers scored significantly higher than Controls in self-reported symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and worry
Summary
European statistics have shown that in 2015 there have been close to 3.1 million non-fatal occupational accidents (Eurostat, 2017). According to Foa et al (1989), the presentation of stimuli associated with the traumatic event activates a specific network encoded in memory, which contains representations of trauma-related stimuli This cognitive fear structure increases sensitivity and attention toward stimuli recorded in the network and, in turn, the network’s activation results in reduced availability of cognitive resources for the processing of non-trauma-related stimuli. In line with this hypothesis, an attentional bias toward traumarelated information has been shown to predict anxiety and post-traumatic symptoms in individuals exposed to traumatic situations (Wald et al, 2011)
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