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Associations Between Attentional Bias and Interpretation Bias and Change in School Concerns and Anxiety Symptoms During the Transition from Primary to Secondary School

The transition from primary to secondary school is often associated with a period of heightened anxiety and worry. For most children, any feelings of anxiety subside relatively quickly but for a small minority, emotional difficulties can continue into the first year of secondary school and beyond. T...

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Autores principales: Lester, Kathryn J., Lisk, Stephen C., Carr, Ewan, Patrick, Fiona, Eley, Thalia C.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer US 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6647860/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30891678
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10802-019-00528-3
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author Lester, Kathryn J.
Lisk, Stephen C.
Carr, Ewan
Patrick, Fiona
Eley, Thalia C.
author_facet Lester, Kathryn J.
Lisk, Stephen C.
Carr, Ewan
Patrick, Fiona
Eley, Thalia C.
author_sort Lester, Kathryn J.
collection PubMed
description The transition from primary to secondary school is often associated with a period of heightened anxiety and worry. For most children, any feelings of anxiety subside relatively quickly but for a small minority, emotional difficulties can continue into the first year of secondary school and beyond. This study recruited 109 children and measured their anxiety symptoms and school concerns toward the end of primary school and again at the end of their first term of secondary school. We investigated for the first time whether pre-transition measures of attentional and interpretation bias, and the magnitude of change in attentional bias toward and away from threat stimuli were associated with pre- and post-transition measures of anxiety and school concerns, and the change in these measures over time. Over 50% of the current sample exceeded clinical levels of anxiety at pre-transition. However, anxiety symptoms and school concerns had significantly reduced by post-transition. Higher levels of pre-transition anxiety or school concerns, and a greater magnitude of change in attentional bias towards threat stimuli predicted a larger reduction in anxiety symptoms and school concerns across the transition period. A greater interpretation bias toward threat was associated with higher pre-transition anxiety symptoms and school concerns but not post-transition scores, or the change in these scores. While many children experience heightened anxiety prior to school transition, this appears to be largely temporary and self-resolves. Nonetheless, the current findings highlight the importance of monitoring children’s anxiety and concerns, and related cognitive processes during this important transition period. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10802-019-00528-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
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spelling pubmed-66478602019-08-09 Associations Between Attentional Bias and Interpretation Bias and Change in School Concerns and Anxiety Symptoms During the Transition from Primary to Secondary School Lester, Kathryn J. Lisk, Stephen C. Carr, Ewan Patrick, Fiona Eley, Thalia C. J Abnorm Child Psychol Article The transition from primary to secondary school is often associated with a period of heightened anxiety and worry. For most children, any feelings of anxiety subside relatively quickly but for a small minority, emotional difficulties can continue into the first year of secondary school and beyond. This study recruited 109 children and measured their anxiety symptoms and school concerns toward the end of primary school and again at the end of their first term of secondary school. We investigated for the first time whether pre-transition measures of attentional and interpretation bias, and the magnitude of change in attentional bias toward and away from threat stimuli were associated with pre- and post-transition measures of anxiety and school concerns, and the change in these measures over time. Over 50% of the current sample exceeded clinical levels of anxiety at pre-transition. However, anxiety symptoms and school concerns had significantly reduced by post-transition. Higher levels of pre-transition anxiety or school concerns, and a greater magnitude of change in attentional bias towards threat stimuli predicted a larger reduction in anxiety symptoms and school concerns across the transition period. A greater interpretation bias toward threat was associated with higher pre-transition anxiety symptoms and school concerns but not post-transition scores, or the change in these scores. While many children experience heightened anxiety prior to school transition, this appears to be largely temporary and self-resolves. Nonetheless, the current findings highlight the importance of monitoring children’s anxiety and concerns, and related cognitive processes during this important transition period. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1007/s10802-019-00528-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Springer US 2019-03-20 2019 /pmc/articles/PMC6647860/ /pubmed/30891678 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10802-019-00528-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
spellingShingle Article
Lester, Kathryn J.
Lisk, Stephen C.
Carr, Ewan
Patrick, Fiona
Eley, Thalia C.
Associations Between Attentional Bias and Interpretation Bias and Change in School Concerns and Anxiety Symptoms During the Transition from Primary to Secondary School
title Associations Between Attentional Bias and Interpretation Bias and Change in School Concerns and Anxiety Symptoms During the Transition from Primary to Secondary School
title_full Associations Between Attentional Bias and Interpretation Bias and Change in School Concerns and Anxiety Symptoms During the Transition from Primary to Secondary School
title_fullStr Associations Between Attentional Bias and Interpretation Bias and Change in School Concerns and Anxiety Symptoms During the Transition from Primary to Secondary School
title_full_unstemmed Associations Between Attentional Bias and Interpretation Bias and Change in School Concerns and Anxiety Symptoms During the Transition from Primary to Secondary School
title_short Associations Between Attentional Bias and Interpretation Bias and Change in School Concerns and Anxiety Symptoms During the Transition from Primary to Secondary School
title_sort associations between attentional bias and interpretation bias and change in school concerns and anxiety symptoms during the transition from primary to secondary school
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6647860/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30891678
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10802-019-00528-3
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