Posttraumatic Stress and Attentional Bias towards Cancer-Related Stimuli in Parents of Children Recently Diagnosed with Cancer

Objectives To investigate whether posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) are related to attentional bias towards cancer-related stimuli among parents of children recently diagnosed with cancer. Methods Sixty-two parents completed questionnaires measuring PTSS, depression, and anxiety and the emotional Stroop task via the Internet. The emotional Stroop task included cancer-related words, cardiovascular disease-related words, and neutral words. Results Participants were split in two groups based on the median of PTSS: High-PTSS and Low-PTSS. There was a significant interaction between word-type and group and a planned contrast test of this interaction indicated that the High-PTSS group had longer response latencies on cancer-related words compared to the other word-type and group combinations. Conclusions Findings suggest that PTSS are related to attentional bias towards cancer-related stimuli among parents of children recently diagnosed with cancer. Implications of this finding for the understanding of PTSS in this population, future research, and clinical practice are discussed.