Background and objectives

Maladaptive metacognitive beliefs are associated with the development of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms following trauma, however it remains unclear whether training people to adopt healthy metacognitive beliefs helps to protect against the development of PTSD symptoms. We developed and tested a new cognitive bias modification training protocol (CBM_Metacog) that aimed to prevent analogue PTSD by training people to adopt healthy metacognitive beliefs prior to watching a distressing film.

Methods

Participants (N = 135) received CBM_Metacog or a control CBM training and then watched a trauma film. We assessed participants’ metacognitive appraisal style/beliefs, analogue PTSD symptoms, including intrusions and meta-awareness of their intrusions.

Results

CBM_Metacog led participants to adopt healthier metacognitive beliefs relative to the control training. Importantly, CBM_Metacog participants reported fewer film intrusions over a 7-day period compared to the control group. CBM_Metacog did not increase participants’ meta-awareness of their intrusions.

Limitations

As this was the first study to manipulate metacognitive beliefs related to an analogue trauma via CBM, we chose to use a healthy participant sample. Therefore, further research is needed before these results can be generalised to clinical samples.

Conclusions

Overall, these results suggest that training people to adopt healthy metacognitive beliefs, prior to trauma exposure, may help reduce vulnerability to PTSD.

中文翻译：

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计算机化元认知认知偏差修正训练对适应性元认知信念和创伤后应激障碍症状发展的影响

背景和目标

适应不良的元认知信念与创伤后创伤后应激障碍 (PTSD) 症状的发展有关，但尚不清楚训练人们采用健康的元认知信念是否有助于防止 PTSD 症状的发展。我们开发并测试了一种新的认知偏差修正训练方案 (CBM _Metacog )，旨在通过训练人们在观看令人痛苦的电影之前采用健康的元认知信念来预防模拟 PTSD。

方法

参与者 (N = 135) 接受了 CBM _Metacog或对照 CBM 培训，然后观看了创伤影片。我们评估了参与者的元认知评估风格/信念、类似的 PTSD 症状，包括入侵和对其入侵的元意识。

结果

CBM _Metacog引导参与者采用相对于对照训练更健康的元认知信念。重要的是，与对照组相比，CBM _{Metacog参与者在 7 天内报告的胶片侵入次数较少。}CBM _Metacog并没有增加参与者对其入侵的元意识。

限制

由于这是第一项通过 CBM 操纵与模拟创伤相关的元认知信念的研究，我们选择使用健康的参与者样本。因此，在将这些结果推广到临床样本之前，需要进一步的研究。

结论

总体而言，这些结果表明，在创伤暴露之前培训人们采用健康的元认知信念可能有助于降低对 PTSD 的易感性。