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International Journal of Behavioral Medicine
Published in: International Journal of Behavioral Medicine 1/2018

Open Access 01-02-2018

Cross-Cultural Study of Information Processing Biases in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Comparison of Dutch and UK Chronic Fatigue Patients

Published in: International Journal of Behavioral Medicine | Issue 1/2018

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Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to replicate a UK study, with a Dutch sample to explore whether attention and interpretation biases and general attentional control deficits in chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) are similar across populations and cultures.

Method

Thirty eight Dutch CFS participants were compared to 52 CFS and 51 healthy participants recruited from the UK. Participants completed self-report measures of symptoms, functioning, and mood, as well as three experimental tasks (i) visual-probe task measuring attentional bias to illness (somatic symptoms and disability) versus neutral words, (ii) interpretive bias task measuring positive versus somatic interpretations of ambiguous information, and (iii) the Attention Network Test measuring general attentional control.

Results

Compared to controls, Dutch and UK participants with CFS showed a significant attentional bias for illness-related words and were significantly more likely to interpret ambiguous information in a somatic way. These effects were not moderated by attentional control. There were no significant differences between the Dutch and UK CFS groups on attentional bias, interpretation bias, or attentional control scores.

Conclusion

This study replicated the main findings of the UK study, with a Dutch CFS population, indicating that across these two cultures, people with CFS demonstrate biases in how somatic information is attended to and interpreted. These illness-specific biases appear to be unrelated to general attentional control deficits.
Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
Both English and Dutch versions of the CFQ [22, 24] and WSAS [22, 23, 25] have been validated for use with CFS populations
 
2
The attention network task measures three aspects of attention: orientation, altering, and attentional control. For the purpose of this study, we have reported only the trials which correspond to the attentional control score.
 
3
Since the Dutch and UK education system differ substantially, education levels were categorized as low or high. For the Dutch patients, no education, lower and middle vocational education were considered low and higher education was considered high. For the UK patients, no education or only secondary education were considered low and polytechnic and university education high. This definition was based on [18].
 
4
Sensitivity analysis found no effect of controlling for HADs anxiety in subsequent analyses.
 
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Metadata
Title
Cross-Cultural Study of Information Processing Biases in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Comparison of Dutch and UK Chronic Fatigue Patients
Publication date
01-02-2018
Published in
International Journal of Behavioral Medicine / Issue 1/2018
Print ISSN: 1070-5503
Electronic ISSN: 1532-7558
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-017-9682-z

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