Assessing the efficacy and safety of STOP (successful treatment for paranoia)-an app-based cognitive bias modification therapy for paranoia: a randomised clinical trial protocol.

Background: Paranoia, the belief that you are at risk of significant physical or emotional harm from others, is a common difficulty, which causes significant distress and impairment to daily functioning, including in psychosis-spectrum disorders. According to cognitive models of psychosis, paranoia may be partly maintained by cognitive processes, including interpretation biases. Cognitive bias modification for paranoia (CBM-pa) is an intervention targeting the bias towards interpreting ambiguous social scenarios in a way that is personally threatening.

Developing a process for assessing the safety of a digital mental health intervention and gaining regulatory approval: a case study and academic's guide.

Background: The field of digital mental health has followed an exponential growth trajectory in recent years. While the evidence base has increased significantly, its adoption within health and care services has been slowed by several challenges, including a lack of knowledge from researchers regarding how to navigate the pathway for mandatory regulatory approval. This paper details the steps that a team must take to achieve the required approvals to carry out a research study using a novel digital mental health intervention.

Bridging the gap from medical to psychological safety assessment: consensus study in a digital mental health context.

Background: Digital Mental Health Interventions (DMHIs) that meet the definition of a medical device are regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in the UK. The MHRA uses procedures that were originally developed for pharmaceuticals to assess the safety of DMHIs. There is recognition that this may not be ideal, as is evident by an ongoing consultation for reform led by the MHRA and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.

User-Centered Development of STOP (Successful Treatment for Paranoia): Material Development and Usability Testing for a Digital Therapeutic for Paranoia.

Background: Paranoia is a highly debilitating mental health condition. One novel intervention for paranoia is cognitive bias modification for paranoia (CBM-pa). CBM-pa comes from a class of interventions that focus on manipulating interpretation bias.

The role of consciousness in threat extinction learning.

Extinction learning is regarded as a core mechanism underlying exposure therapy. The extent to which learned threats can be extinguished without conscious awareness is a controversial and on-going debate. We investigated whether implicit vs.

The Safety of Digital Mental Health Interventions: Systematic Review and Recommendations.

Background: Evidence suggests that digital mental health interventions (DMHIs) for common mental health conditions are effective. However, digital interventions, such as face-to-face therapies, pose risks to patients. A safe intervention is considered one in which the measured benefits outweigh the identified and mitigated risks.

Cognitive bias modification for paranoia (CBM-pa): a randomised controlled feasibility study in patients with distressing paranoid beliefs.

Background: Cognitive Bias Modification for paranoia (CBM-pa) is a novel, theory-driven psychological intervention targeting the biased interpretation of emotional ambiguity associated with paranoia. Study objectives were (i) test the intervention's feasibility, (ii) provide effect size estimates, (iii) assess dose-response and (iv) select primary outcomes for future trials.

Methods: In a double-blind randomised controlled trial, sixty-three outpatients with clinically significant paranoia were randomised to either CBM-pa or an active control (text reading) between April 2016 and September 2017.

The Relationship Between Attention, Interpretation, and Memory Bias During Facial Perception in Social Anxiety.

Although cognitive theories suggest the interactive nature of information processing biases in contributing to social anxiety, most studies to date have investigated these biases in isolation. This study aimed at (a) testing the association between social anxiety and each of the threat-related cognitive biases: attention, interpretation, and memory bias; and (b) examining the relationship between these cognitive biases in facial perception. We recruited an unselected sample of 188 adult participants and measured their level of social anxiety and cognitive biases using faces displaying angry, disgusted, happy, and ambiguous versions of these expressions.

The combined cognitive bias hypothesis in anxiety: A systematic review and meta-analysis.

Cognitive theories have postulated the relational nature of different cognitive biases in the development and maintenance of anxiety disorders. To test this combined cognitive bias hypothesis, this review addressed the following questions: (i) whether different cognitive biases are associated with each other and (ii) whether one bias influences another bias. We identified 36 articles that studied the relationship between cognitive biases (attention, interpretation and memory bias).

Personalized cognitive training: Protocol for individual-level meta-analysis implementing machine learning methods.

Accumulating evidence suggests that cognitive training may enhance well-being. Yet, mixed findings imply that individual differences and training characteristics may interact to moderate training efficacy. To investigate this possibility, the current paper describes a protocol for a data-driven individual-level meta-analysis study aimed at developing personalized cognitive training.

Anxiety mediates the relationship between interpretation bias and paranoia in patients with persistent persecutory beliefs.

The role of interpretation bias in generating and maintaining persecutory beliefs/paranoid ideation is becoming established in the literature, but how negative mood affects this relationship remains unclear. The current study investigated the mediating role of anxiety and depression in the association between interpretation bias and paranoia in patients with persistent paranoia. We applied the mediation model to clinical data gathered from patients with persistent paranoia ( = 62), and compared how levels of depression and anxiety affected the association between interpretation bias and paranoia.

Biased interpretation in paranoia and its modification.

Background And Objectives: Cognitive models of psychosis implicate interpretation biases as one of the mechanisms involved in the formation and maintenance of symptoms. First we measured the strength of association between interpretation biases and psychosis-relevant traits. Next we manipulated these biases and quantified the effects of doing so on psychosis-relevant outcomes.

The implication of cognitive processes in emotional bias.

Recently, Yuan et al. (2019) quantitatively reviewed emotional bias studies with P3 event-related potential amplitudes and demonstrated that emotional bias varies with stimulus parameters, such as type, arousal, and task setting. We believe that emotional biases might profitably be studied together with cognitive processes in order to understand the affective dysregulation underpinning various mental illnesses.

Why do parents not re-vaccinate their child for influenza? A prospective cohort study.

Child influenza vaccination rates for the UK are published annually, however there are no publicly available data on how many children are re-vaccinated the following year. This prospective cohort study aimed to identify factors associated with not re-vaccinating one's child. Participants (n = 270) completed a questionnaire before their child was vaccinated for influenza in the 2016/17 season, and follow-up questionnaires three days and one month after their child's vaccination.

Psychosocial Factors Affecting Parental Report of Symptoms in Children: A Systematic Review.

Objective: Parents make important treatment decisions for their children based on symptoms they perceive their child to be experiencing. Multiple psychological factors are associated with subjective symptom perception, but factors affecting perception of symptoms in others have been explored less. We systematically reviewed the literature to identify parent and child psychological factors associated with parental report of physical symptoms in their child.

Biased cognition in East Asian and Western cultures.

The majority of cognitive bias research has been conducted in Western cultures. We examined cross-cultural differences in cognitive biases, comparing Westerners' and East Asians' performance and acculturation following migration to the opposite culture. Two local (UK, Hong Kong) and four migrant (short-term and long-term migrants to each culture) samples completed culturally validated tasks measuring attentional and interpretation bias.

A qualitative study of the acceptability of cognitive bias modification for paranoia (CBM-pa) in patients with psychosis.

Background: Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) has been used successfully as a computer-based intervention in disorders such as anxiety. However, CBM to modify interpretations of ambiguous information relevant to paranoia has not yet been tested. We conducted a qualitative investigation of a novel intervention called CBM for paranoia (CBM-pa) to examine its acceptability in patients with psychosis.

Utilising cognitive bias modification to remedy appearance and self-worth biases in eating disorder psychopathology: A systematic review.

Background And Objectives: This study systematically reviewed the impact of Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) on biases related to attention (CBM-A) and interpretation (CBM-I) for appearance and self-worth stimuli and the subsequent impact on eating disorder (ED) psychopathology.

Method: The current review was guided by the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA), with 12 studies meeting inclusion criteria (CBM-A n = 5; CBM-I n = 7).

Results: The literature provides preliminary support for CBM-A and CBM-I efficacy in eliciting bias change in varying degrees of psychopathology (Cohen's d ranging between -1.

The neural correlates of perceived energy levels in older adults with late-life depression.

Late-life depression is common among older adults. Although white-matter abnormality is highly implicated, the extent to which the corticospinal tract is associated with the pathophysiology of late-life depression is unclear. The current study aims to investigate the white-matter structural integrity of the corticospinal tract and determine its cognitive and functional correlates in older adults with late-life depression.

A new cognitive bias modification technique to influence risk factors for eating disorders.

Objective: Eating disorder psychopathology is associated with a propensity to interpret ambiguous stimuli to be negatively related to one's appearance and self-worth. The relative impact of modifying interpretation bias for these respective stimuli is unknown. Hence the main aim of the current study was to compare two cognitive bias modification protocols targeting interpretation bias (CBM-I), one focused on appearance and the other on self-worth, in terms of impacting interpretation bias, body dissatisfaction and negative affect.

The influence of positive and negative affect on emotional attention.

Background And Objectives: Mechanisms of engagement and disengagement of attention to emotional information are thought to contribute to the onset and maintenance of anxiety and depression, a conclusion based largely on findings in analogue subclinical samples. However, we argue that traditionally defined analogue samples can be misleading. Firstly, research has challenged the adequacy of conventional measures of subclinical traits by illustrating that supposedly distinct scales are highly inter-correlated and do not therefore measure independent constructs.

Parental Expectation of Side Effects Following Vaccination Is Self-fulfilling: A Prospective Cohort Study.

Background: One of the major factors contributing to parental refusal of vaccinations is the perception that vaccines cause side effects. Although symptoms are commonly reported following vaccinations, their causes are not always straightforward. Although some may be directly attributable to the vaccine itself, others may reflect pre-existing or coincidental symptoms that are misattributed to the vaccine.

Six-month longitudinal associations between cognitive functioning and distress among the community-based elderly in Hong Kong: A cross-lagged panel analysis.

Although previous studies have extensively documented the cross-sectional relationship between cognitive impairment and psychological distress, findings relating to their longitudinal associations remains mixed. The present study examines the longitudinal associations and mutual influence between cognitive functioning and psychological distress across six months among community-dwelling elderly in Hong Kong. A total of 162 older adults (40 males; M = 69.

Interaction between childhood adversity and functional polymorphisms in the dopamine pathway on first-episode psychosis.

Background: There is consistent evidence of a cumulative relationship between childhood adversity and psychosis, with number of adversities experienced increasing the probability of psychosis onset. It is possible that genetic factors moderate the association between childhood adversity and psychosis, potentially by influencing how an individual reacts biologically and/or psychologically following exposure to adversity, in such a way as to set them off on the path to psychosis. However, identifying the specific genetic variants involved and how they interact with childhood adversity remains challenging.