Appraisal of activating thoughts in generalized anxiety disorder

Basic processes and clinical applications of mental imagery in worry: A systematic review

BACKGROUND

In this systematic review, we aimed to synthesise existing research on the phenomenology of mental imagery among high worriers compared to healthy individuals, and to characterise the nature and effectiveness of existing imagery-related interventions in treatment of worry.

METHODS

PsycInfo, CENTRAL, EMBASE, Medline, Medline Epub, and PubMed were searched for studies examining the relationship between worry/GAD and mental imagery, or interventions using imagery in treatment of worry/GAD. We assessed study quality and used qualitative narrative synthesis to comprehensively map study results.

RESULTS

The search yielded 2589 abstracts that were assessed for eligibility independently by two authors. From this, 183 full texts were screened and 50 qualitatively synthesised. Twenty-seven reported an association between worry/GAD and an aspect of mental imagery. Here, overactive negative and worry imagery, and diminished positive future imagining, were associated with worry/GAD. Twenty-three studies reported an intervention. This literature suggested mixed findings regarding efficacy, including for imaginal exposure as an independent technique for GAD.

CONCLUSIONS

Findings support dysfunctional negative imagining and diminished positive prospective imagery in GAD. General imagining abilities remain intact, which is promising for efforts to utilise imagery in treatment. Further research is warranted to develop innovative clinical applications of imagery in treatment of GAD.

Inconclusive results of slow cortical potential neurofeedback for the treatment of chronic post-stroke attention deficits

Introduction

Individuals who have suffered a stroke may experience long-lasting cognitive impairments that can worsen if left untreated. We investigated whether voluntary control of slow cortical potentials (SCP) through neurofeedback would help alleviate chronic post-stroke symptoms of impaired attention.

Methods

The study initially enrolled twenty-eight participants, but due to a high drop-out rate, only sixteen participants completed eight SCP neurofeedback training sessions within three to four weeks. During these sessions, we gave feedback to the participants on their ability to regulate SCPs on a computer screen.

Results

Our findings showed a non-significant increase in SCP regulation towards cortical negativity. On the behavioral level, we found improved test values in the divided attention and attentional flexibility subtests of the test battery for attention performance. However, we cannot eliminate the possibility that nonspecific effects influenced or caused our results. We have not observed any improvement regarding the effects of attention deficits on participants' daily lives. We identified five individuals who could gain SCP control successfully and consistently towards negativity. In this group of responders, we observed an improvement in the test results related to divided attention but no other attention-related improvements.

Discussion

Based on our observations, results of SCP neurofeedback training for the treatment of attention deficits after a stroke are inconclusive. More research is necessary to determine the effectiveness of SCP neurofeedback in helping stroke survivors cope with attention-related challenges in their daily lives.

Psychometrische Gütekriterien des Metakognitionsfragebogens (Kurzversion, MKF-30)

Zusammenfassung. Theoretischer Hintergrund: Metakognitionen wird für das Verständnis verschiedener psychischer Störungen eine wichtige Rolle beigemessen. So kann z.B. übermäßiges Sorgen durch Metakognitionen ausgelöst und aufrechterhalten werden. Fragestellung: Ziel dieser Arbeit war die systematische psychometrische Untersuchung der deutschen Kurzform des Metacognition Questionnaire (MKF-30). Methode: Mittels einer Teilstichprobe (N = 1168) wurde explorativ die Faktorenstruktur des MKF-30 ermittelt. Die ermittelte 5-Faktorenstruktur wurde anschließend konfirmiert (Teilstichprobe 2: N = 1155). Zur Konstruktvalidierung wurden Angst- sowie ein Depressionsfragebogen eingesetzt. Ergebnisse: Es ließen sich die fünf Faktoren des englischen Originals replizieren und konfirmieren. Die Analysen der Itemkennwerte sowie der konvergenten Validität lieferten insgesamt gute Ergebnisse. Schlussfolgerungen: Der MKF-30 kann vorläufig als ein reliables, valides und ökonomisches Instrument zur Erfassung von Metakognitionen angesehen werden.