Identifying characteristics of non-completers in fear conditioning paradigms with children and adolescents
- The number of studies on fear conditioning in children and adolescents has increased in recent years. Most of these studies exclusively focus on data of completers while dropout rates, reasons for dropout, and specific characteristics of non-completers are underreported. This study systematically investigated data of 283 children and adolescents between 8 and 17 years (\(\it M\) = 11.10, \(\it SD\) = 2.14) undergoing a differential fear conditioning paradigm using a female scream as unconditioned stimulus (US). The sample included 230 children and adolescents with a current primary anxiety disorder (separation anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, and specific phobia) and 53 non-anxious controls. The dropout rate was 24.1%. The most common reason to discontinue was being afraid of the US (59.1%) followed by the startle probe being too loud (15.2%). Logistic regressions revealed that younger age and a present anxiety disorder predicted dropout. There seem to be distinct characteristics potentially predicting dropout from fear conditioning paradigms. Thus, interpretability and generalizability of those paradigms are limited when non-completers are not considered. Future research should conscientiously look at these data more closely and investigate paradigms that work independent of age and diagnostic status.
Author: | Tabea FlasinskiORCiDGND, Katharina SommerORCiDGND, Silvia SchneiderORCiDGND, Jürgen MargrafORCiDGND, Verena PflugORCiDGND, Michael W. LippertORCiDGND, Hanna ChristiansenORCiDGND, Jan Christopher CwikORCiDGND, Alfons O. HammORCiDGND, Tina In-AlbonORCiDGND, Susanne KnappeORCiDGND, Paul PauliORCiDGND, Jan RichterORCiDGND, Brunna Tuschen-CaffierORCiDGND, Dirk AdolphORCiDGND |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hbz:294-102290 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1177/20438087221108291 |
Parent Title (English): | Journal of experimental psychopathology |
Publisher: | Sage |
Place of publication: | Thousand Oaks, Kalifornien, Vereinigte Staaten |
Document Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Date of Publication (online): | 2023/10/17 |
Date of first Publication: | 2022/07/15 |
Publishing Institution: | Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universitätsbibliothek |
Tag: | Open Access Fonds anxiety disorder; dropout; extinction learning; fear conditioning; non-completers |
Volume: | 13 |
Issue: | 3 |
First Page: | 1 |
Last Page: | 9 |
Note: | Article Processing Charge funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and the Open Access Publication Fund of Ruhr-Universität Bochum. |
Institutes/Facilities: | Lehrstuhl für Klinische Kinder- und Jugendpsychologie |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | Philosophie und Psychologie / Psychologie |
open_access (DINI-Set): | open_access |
faculties: | Fakultät für Psychologie |
Licence (English): | Creative Commons - CC BY-NC 4.0 - Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International |