Transdiagnostic internet treatment for anxiety and depression: a randomised controlled trial.

Disorder-specific cognitive behavioural therapy programs delivered over the internet (iCBT) with clinician guidance are effective at treating specific anxiety disorders and depression. The present study examined the efficacy of a transdiagnostic iCBT protocol to treat three anxiety disorders and/or depression within the same program (the Wellbeing Program). Seventy-seven individuals with a principal diagnosis of major depression, generalised anxiety disorder, panic disorder, and/or social phobia were randomly assigned to a Treatment or Waitlist Control group.

The acceptability of Internet-based treatment and characteristics of an adult sample with obsessive compulsive disorder: an Internet survey.

Background: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a disabling anxiety disorder, but most individuals delay seeking treatment. Internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy (iCBT) is an innovative service delivery method that may help to improve access to care, but the acceptability to consumers of such programs has not yet been established.

Methodology: People with symptoms of OCD were invited to complete an online survey enquiring about demographic characteristics, symptom severity, and acceptability of Internet-based treatment.

Pain-related attentional biases: the importance of the personal relevance and ecological validity of stimuli.

Unlabelled: The literature regarding pain-related attentional biases is currently marked by considerable inconsistency. The primary aim of the present study was to examine whether 2 stimulus-related factors may be important to the detection of pain-related attentional biases: 1) the personal relevance of stimuli; and 2) their ecological validity. To do this, the present research compared the ability of a word-based dot-probe task (ie, lower ecological validity) and picture-based dot-probe task (ie, higher ecological validity) to detect attentional biases using generally selected (ie, lower personal relevance) and idiosyncratically selected stimuli (ie, higher personal relevance).

Psychometric comparison of the PHQ-9 and BDI-II for measuring response during treatment of depression.

The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 Item (PHQ-9) and Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) are frequently used measures of depression severity, but little is known about their relative psychometric properties. The authors assessed psychometric properties of both measures during treatment for depression. The PHQ-9 and BDI-II scores from 172 depressed participants in two randomized controlled trials of treatment for depression were assessed and combined.

A comparison of the effect of attention training and relaxation on responses to pain.

This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of an attention training technique (ATT) on pain ratings, threshold and tolerance during the cold pressor task. One hundred and three undergraduate students were randomly assigned to receive either threat-alleviating or threat-inducing information about the task. Participants were then re-randomized to receive either ATT or progressive muscle relaxation (PMR).

Attentional biases in chronic pain associated with rheumatoid arthritis: hypervigilance or difficulties disengaging?

Unlabelled: There is evidence that pain patients demonstrate attentional biases toward some pain-related stimuli (eg, sensory words) and not others (eg, affective words). However, whether individuals in chronic pain caused by rheumatoid arthritis (RA) also demonstrate this bias has not been investigated. Further, within the pain literature, whether these biases reflect hypervigilance or difficulty disengaging from stimuli remains contentious.