The effect of attention bias modification on depressive symptoms in a comorbid sample: a randomized controlled trial

Journal article

Background: The present study reports on long-term outcomes of ABM over one year in self-reported and clinician-rated depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, and relapse rates. Methods: We conducted a double-blind randomized sham-controlled trial in 301 participants with recurrent major depression disorder between January 2015 and October 2016 (#NCT02658682). Participants were allo- cated to ABM or sham condition twice daily for 14 consecutive days. Long-term effects of ABM were assessed by BDI-II, HDRS and BAI at one-, six-, and 12-months follow-up. Relapse rates at 12-months follow-up were also assessed. Results: There was no long-term effect of ABM (as compared to sham) on clinician-rated depression symptoms, on anxiety symptoms, nor in relapse rates. By 12 months follow-up, there was a small effect on self-reported depression favoring ABM over sham. Limitations: The lack of an assessment-only condition hinders comparison to natural trajectories of depression symptoms. Conclusions: The overall long-term effect of ABM was limited, and currently there is no convincing evidence for implementing this as a viable treatment option in clinical populations. We speculate if the sham condition should be replaced by another control condition when investigating the clinical utility of ABM.publishedVersio

Authors: Bø, R; Kraft, B; Pedersen, ML; Joormann, J; Jonassen, R

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Journal: Psychological Medicine
• Volume: 53
• Issue: 13
• Pages: 6389-6396
• Publication date: 2023-01-09
• DOI: 10.1017/s0033291722003956
• EISSN: 1469-8978
• ISSN: 0033-2917
• Language: English
• Keywords: Cognition; Medicine; Beck Anxiety Inventory; Depressive symptoms; Internal medicine; Psychology; Clinical psychology; Beck Depression Inventory; Rumination; Randomized controlled trial; Depression (economics); Psychiatry; Anxiety