Anxiety sensitivity is associated with attentional bias for pain-related information in healthy children and adolescents

This investigation explored the association between anxiety sensitivity and attentional bias for threatening information in children and adolescents (N=40). Participants completed a pictorial version of the visual-probe task, featuring pain-related, health-threat and general-threat images presented for 500 and 1250ms. Regression analyses revealed significant associations between anxiety sensitivity and attentional bias towards pain-related images presented for 500ms and between state anxiety and attentional bias towards general-threat images presented for 1250ms. These results suggest that in children and adolescents, anxiety sensitivity is associated with attentional bias for negative information of personal relevance.