The effect of heart focused anxiety on attentional bias in cardiac and non-cardiac patients

Many patients in health settings, either with or without a medically verified cardiovascular disease (CVD) experience a specific Heart Focused Anxiety (HFA), characterised by cardiorespiratory pain, psychological distress and a belief that the heart is faulty. In accordance with general models of anxiety and Eifert's (1992) HFA model, this study aimed to examine whether HFA participants with or without CVD displayed a content-specific attentional bias towards threatening cardiac stimuli and to clarify if a number of commonly cited factors know to influence bias patterns are also active in HFA. One hundred and seventy-eight participants were allocated to five experimental groups (NoCVD-HighHFA, NoCVD-LowHFA, CVD-HighHFA, CVD LowHFA and NoCVD-LowHFA-High Trait Anxiety). The groups completed a visual probe task at two presentation levels, subliminal (