The Effectiveness of Mindfulness and the Attention Bias Program on Attention, Inhibition and Emotional Regulation in Children with Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Authors
mohsen saeedmanesh
mahdiyeh azizi
zahra hematian
science and art
Abstract
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of mindfulness and the attention bias program on attention, inhibition and emotional regulation among children with generalised anxiety disorder. This was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design. The population of this study consisted of 30 children with generalised anxiety disorder referred to psychiatric clinics in Tehran's 20th district selected by the available sampling method and randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group underwent an integrated program of attention correction and mindfulness for 8 sessions and the control group did not receive any intervention. In addition, parents of all participants completed the brief executive functions test at pre-test and post-test. Data were statistically analysed at two levels of descriptive (mean and standard deviation) and inferential (multivariate analysis of covariance). The results of this study showed that the program of correcting attention bias and mindfulness had an effect on the amount of attention, inhibition and emotion control among children with generalised anxiety disorder (p < 0.001). According to the findings of this study, it could be concluded that the combination of the treatment of attention bias and mindfulness improves executive functions in children with generalized anxiety and can be used in clinical interventions.
Keywords
attention bias
Mindfulness
Executive Functions
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
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