A priori expectancy bias and its relation to shock experience and anxiety: a naturalistic study in patients with an automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator

Patients with an automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator (AICD) may offer an unique naturalistic opportunity to study whether expectancy biases develop because of precipitating aversive or traumatic experiences and/or because of elevated anxiety. An expectancy bias and its associations with...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry 2001-09, Vol.32 (3), p.159-171
Main Authors: Pauli, Paul, Wiedemann, Georg, Dengler, Wilhelm, Kühlkamp, Volker
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
AICD
Anxiety
Anxiety - diagnosis
Anxiety - etiology
Automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator
Bias
Cognitive bias
Cognitive biases
Defibrillation
Defibrillators, Implantable - psychology
Defibrillators, Implantable - statistics & numerical data
Depression - diagnosis
Depression - etiology
Expectancy bias
Expectancy theory
Female
Heart arrhythmia
Humans
Implants
Male
Middle Aged
Patients
Perceptual Disorders - diagnosis
Perceptual Disorders - etiology
Shock
Shock - epidemiology
Shock - psychology
Shock - therapy
Surveys and Questionnaires
Treatment
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Summary:Patients with an automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator (AICD) may offer an unique naturalistic opportunity to study whether expectancy biases develop because of precipitating aversive or traumatic experiences and/or because of elevated anxiety. An expectancy bias and its associations with AICD discharge and anxiety was examined in 24 AICD patients with a thought experiment. While patients without AICD discharge exhibited no expectancy bias, patients with discharge experiences were found to expect that stimuli depicting medical emergency situations will be followed by an aversive consequence. The magnitude of their expectancy bias was positively correlated with their anxiety level. In the group with AICD discharge, patients with low anxiety levels exhibited no bias, while patients with high anxiety levels exhibited a rather strong bias. It seems that the experience of an aversive or traumatic event, here an AICD discharge, is a necessary (but not sufficient) precipitating event for the development of an expectancy bias. If such an event happens, trait anxiety level presumably determines if and how strong the expectancy bias will be.
ISSN:0005-7916
1873-7943
DOI:10.1016/S0005-7916(01)00032-5