An attentional bias approach to understanding and reducing the psychosocial burden of psoriasis

Project Description

People with psoriasis are not only affected by the physical impact, but also by the psychosocial burden of the disease. Patients are often trapped in a mutually reinforcing cycle of social rejection, avoidance coping and social isolation, which is associated with a negative effect on QoL, mood and co-morbidity. From a clinical perspective, it would be desirable to identify psychological mechanisms that contribute, main and excacerbate this social rejection-isolation cycle, in order to design targeted psychological interventions that can complement physical therapy of psoriasis. The research proposed here will take such an approach, by studying whether people with psoriasis show a hypervigilant form of attentional processing (i.e., an attentional bias, AB) for various sources of information, including disease-related verbal and non-verbal social cues, such as facial and bodily emotional expressions. Next, we will determine whether such an AB in psoriasis is driven by early automatic or late controlled processes. Finally, we will trial whether AB can be modified using a behavioural training procedure, and whether such an AB modification can reduce the psychosocial burden of psoriasis.