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Cross-Cultural Study of Information Processing Biases in CFS

Discussion in 'Psychosomatic research - ME/CFS and Long Covid' started by Dolphin, Oct 20, 2017.

  1. Dolphin

    Dolphin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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  2. Dolphin

    Dolphin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I know this is in the wrong forum but I can't currently post in the psychosocial forum.
    s4ME.PNG
     
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  3. Dolphin

    Dolphin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I am left wondering whether there is selective reporting here.
     
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  4. Dolphin

    Dolphin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Does the "atypical" sentence mean attentional bias does not occur in depression in this situation rose simply that it has not been measured in this scenario?

    I'm not sure I recall this group critiquing the HADS before this finding. They don't discuss this finding any further.

    "per say" should presumably be "per se"
     
    Last edited: Oct 20, 2017
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  5. Dolphin

    Dolphin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I don't know enough about the cohorts to comment.
     
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  6. Dolphin

    Dolphin Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Seems reasonable

    I am not at all convinced this will make much difference in terms of developing efficacious treatments.

    Seems reasonable
     
  7. Valentijn

    Valentijn Guest

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    The Dutch education system is very different. Starting around age 11-12, students go to three different types of high schools, basically geared at either going to trade school at 16 with some apprenticeship, normal university at 17, or a research/science university at 18.

    Which track they end up on in high school depends on both their teacher-rated performance in elementary school and test scores at the end of elementary school. It sounds like bias sometimes plays a role in ratings by teacher, based on the child's ethnicity and/or socioeconomic status.

    So yeah, it gets pretty complicated in the Dutch system :p Can't just add up the years in school.
     
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  8. MeSci

    MeSci Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    This seems to be a thesis by the same main author:

    Source: King's College London

    Date: February 2017, September 21, 2017, online Januari 11, 2019

    URL: https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=5&uin=uk.bl.ethos.762335

    https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/en...me(cc5c9646-8a72-49bd-97b4-ba2df2bee0e1).html

    https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/files/103728835/2017_Hughes_Alicia_1253313_ethesis.pdf

    A longitudinal investigation of information processing biases and self-reported cognitions and behaviours in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
    ----------------------------------------------------------
    Alicia Maria Hughes

    - Psychology Department, King's College London, London, U.K.

    Abstract

    Cognitive behavioural models propose the way in which people with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) perceive and respond to symptoms and other illness-related information, contributes to the maintenance of fatigue and disability. Self-report studies exploring a number of these factors have proved fruitful. However, data regarding cognitions and behaviours that may occur at earlier, more implicit levels of processing is lacking. This thesis presents a series of experimental studies to investigate the manner in which people with CFS process information. The main work in this thesis is based on a large cross sectional cohort of people with CFS, compared to healthy controls; followed by a nested longitudinal study of the patients who underwent cognitive behavioural treatments for CFS, namely cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET).

    Study 1: A systematic review of attention and interpretation biases found mixed evidence for information processing biases in CFS and highlights methodological issues in experimental design.

    Study 2: A published article addresses one of the key methodical issues highlighted in the review, the lack of illness-specific materials, by detailing a step-by-step process of comprehensive/robust stimuli development for experimental research.

    Study 3: A published quasi-experimental study indicates that, when using illness-specific materials, people with CFS (n=52) demonstrate attention and interpretation biases, compared to healthy individuals (n=51); which are associated with unhelpful responses to symptoms, but independent of comorbid mood disorder and attentional control deficits.

    Study 4: A replication study with a Dutch cohort of CFS participants (n=38) indicates that cognitive biases are a robust finding across cultures and CFS populations, and confirms that these biases are independent of attentional control.

    Study 5: A nested longitudinal study (n=26) found that, pre-existing attentional biases, as well as a high capacity to develop an attentional bias (i.e. attention malleability), predicts better functioning, but not fatigue post treatment for CFS. Pre-treatment interpretation biases do not appear to predict treatment outcomes in CFS.

    Study 6: A small follow-up up study (n=20) found that attentional control capacity significantly improves following treatment for CFS.

    Whilst attention and interpretation biases did not significantly change across this treated sample, the degree to which they changed was associated with more helpful cognitions and behaviours.

    By exploring the more implicit factors within the cognitive behavioural model of CFS, this body of experimental work has added another dimension to the CFS literature and contributes to a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of information processing in CFS.

    --------
    (c) 2017, 2019 King's College London
     
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  9. Esther12

    Esther12 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Reading the PhD theses of these people is really depressing. I've stopped doing it now. The next generation is looking to be even worse than what we have now - they're the followers of quacks!

    Thanks for the link though - good to have these things available to people.
     
    Last edited: Jan 13, 2019
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  10. rvallee

    rvallee Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    I think it would be worth the exercise to take decades-old papers about the psychosomatic model of ulcers, asthma, autism or any of the other diseases that have had that label before they stopped being denied, just change a few words to apply it to MUS or any of the dozens of stupid acronyms and submit them to the psychosomatic journals. I doubt anyone would be able to tell the difference. The only reason it could fail is eminence, because it's all based on who wrote it and whether it validates preexisting biases, not the content itself.

    There is a diagram that I often post on Twitter showing the psychosomatic model of peptic ulcers. It's almost identical to the ones used for the ME model. It's not similar or close, it's nearly identical. The end of the world is coming January, 2000. No, make that October, 2002. Actually, we meant June, 2006. Nevermind, it's actually 2020, we've got plenty of time to prepare and this time we got this right so sell all your stuff and begin the end of the world party!

    Nothing has changed since the golden years. Decades of stagnation using the same circular logical fallacies and it's still going strong as a default explanation that cannot be challenged because objecting to it is just as much evidence that it's right as submitting to it is. Even in the best cases they merely provide marginal help to a few, nothing that standard supportive therapy couldn't achieve, leaving in their wake suffering on a scale that normally only continent-wide war can achieve. The risk-reward of this field is atrocious. Psychosomatic medicine seriously needs to be put on ice for a few decades, it's a complete disaster.
     
  11. Invisible Woman

    Invisible Woman Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    ....but only for the patients. Nice little earner for those inflicting the damage, but they don't mind and so we don't matter.
     

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