Age Differences in Distress Following Intrusive Thoughts

侵入性想法带来的痛苦的年龄差异

• 批准号: 7939867
• 负责人: BETHANY A TEACHMAN
• 金额: $ 41.39万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-09-30 至 2014-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/7939867
• 关键词: Accidents; Adult; Age; Aging; Anxiety; Anxiety Disorders; Applications Grants; Attention; Belief; Biological Preservation; Clinical; Cognition; Cognitive; Decision Making; Development; Distress; Doctor of Philosophy; Educational process of instructing; Elderly; Emotional; Emotions; Friends; Fright; Future; Health; Healthcare; High Prevalence; Hydrocortisone; Image; Impaired cognition; Incidence; Individual Differences; Intervention Studies; Learning; Letters; Link; Measures; Mediating; Mental Depression; Mental Health; Methodology; Mind; Modeling; Monitor; Morbidity - disease rate; Older Population; Outcome; Participant; Pilot Projects; Population; Process; Psyche structure; Psychopathology; Public Health; Reaction; Recommendation; Recurrence; Relative (related person); Religion and Spirituality; Research; Research Design; Research Personnel; Risk; Risk Factors; Role; Series; Services; Short-Term Memory; Staging; Testing; Thinking; Time; Training; Translating; United States National Institutes of Health; Water; Work; age difference; age related; base; behavioral/social science; brief intervention; cognitive function; coping; daily functioning; emotion regulation; experience; functional decline; healthy aging; heart disease risk; improved; insight; loved ones; mortality; prevent; public health relevance; response; self esteem; social; social cognition; social science research; thought control; tool; young adult

DESCRIPTION: Intrusive thoughts are unpleasant but familiar visitors to the mind. They are a common occurrence for older adults, but little is known about how the experience and consequences of intrusive thoughts change with age. Studying intrusive thoughts in older adults is important because unwanted mental activity is so ubiquitous, and because intrusive thoughts are central to emotion dysregulation, producing anxiety, depression and health problems that are tied to morbidity and mortality. We propose to study age differences in response to intrusive thoughts among healthy and anxious older adults to determine both the protective factors that can help us understand preservation of emotional, physical and mental health, and the risk factors that can help us learn how to intervene with those older adults who are struggling with emotional difficulties. In this proposal, we lay out a model to understand age-related differences in the recurrence of intrusive thoughts and ensuing distress. We will conduct a series of studies with older and younger adults using a thought suppression paradigm where participants will attempt to suppress their intrusive thoughts. This paradigm reliably elicits intrusive thoughts, which will allow us to evaluate age differences in the recurrence and attempts made to control these thoughts, meanings assigned to the thoughts, and the degree to which the thoughts provoke distress. Next, a series of manipulations are planned to examine the mechanisms underlying age differences in intrusive thoughts, such as manipulating the meaning assigned to thoughts and altering available working memory capacity. We will examine both age-related protective and risk factors for managing intrusive thoughts to determine when they contribute to emotion dysregulation versus when they contribute to successful aging. Finally, we will test the translational potential of the model, including brief intervention studies with anxious older adults to determine whether training these adults to assign less threatening meanings to their intrusive thoughts can reduce their distress. We will also evaluate the impact of intrusive thoughts and consequent distress on daily functioning in older adults, examining critical domains such as decision making. Ultimately, by examining the link between intrusive thoughts and distress, we can improve understanding of the interplay between emotion and cognition and their interaction with aging. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Establishing how older adults respond to intrusive thoughts, and teaching more adaptive responses to anxious older adults, is critical to promoting successful aging and public health. Intrusive thoughts have been linked to elevated cortisol, low self esteem, multiple forms of psychopathology and severe emotion dysregulation, which have in turn been shown to predict morbidity and mortality, such as increased risk of heart disease. Thus, the proposed studies will provide the basis for developing tools to prevent unhealthy responses to intrusive thoughts in older adults, and thereby help prevent emotion dysregulation and the resulting health problems.

描述：侵入性思想是令人不愉快但熟悉的访客。对于老年人来说，这是一个普遍的情况，但是对于随着年龄的增长而言，侵入性思想的经历和后果如何变化。在老年人中研究侵入性思想很重要，因为不必要的心理活动是如此无处不在，并且侵入性思想对于情绪失调，导致焦虑，抑郁和健康问题与发病率和死亡有关。我们建议研究健康和焦虑的老年人对侵入性思想的反应年龄差异，以确定可以帮助我们了解情绪，身心健康的保护因素，以及可以帮助我们学习如何与那些在情感困难中挣扎的老年人进行干预的风险因素。 在此提案中，我们制定了一个模型，以了解侵入性思想和随之而来的困扰的复发中与年龄相关的差异。我们将使用思想抑制范式对年龄较大和年轻人进行一系列研究，参与者将尝试抑制他们的侵入性思想。这种范式可靠地引起了侵入性思想，这将使我们能够评估复发的年龄差异和控制这些思想的尝试，分配给思想的含义以及思想引起的痛苦的程度。接下来，计划进行一系列操纵，以检查侵入性思想中年龄差异的机制，例如操纵分配给思想的含义并改变可用的工作记忆能力。我们将研究与年龄相关的保护性和风险因素，以管理侵入性思想，以确定它们何时有助于情绪失调，而不是何时成功衰老。最后，我们将测试该模型的翻译潜力，包括与焦虑的老年人进行简要干预研究，以确定训练这些成年人是否为侵入性思想分配较少威胁的含义可以减少他们的困扰。我们还将评估侵入性思想和随之而来的困扰对老年人日常功能的影响，研究诸如决策之类的关键领域。最终，通过检查侵入性思想与困扰之间的联系，我们可以提高人们对情感与认知之间的相互作用的理解，以及它们与衰老的相互作用。 公共卫生相关性：确定老年人如何应对侵入性思想，并教导对焦虑的老年人的更适应性反应，这对于促进成功的衰老和公共卫生至关重要。侵入性思想与皮质醇，低自尊心，多种形式的心理病理学和严重的情绪失调有关，这些疾病又显示出可以预测发病率和死亡率，例如增加心脏病的风险。因此，拟议的研究将为开发工具提供基础，以防止老年人对侵入性思想的不健康反应，从而有助于防止情绪失调和由此产生的健康问题。