Emotional bias modification for individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder : protocol for a co-design study

Background: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder with a worldwide prevalence rate of 5%. Individuals with ADHD often tend to have difficulties with emotional regulation. The advances in experimental psychology have led to the discovery of emotional...

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Main Authors: Zhang, Melvyn, Vallabhajosyula, Ranganath, Fung, Daniel
Other Authors: Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/146160
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
id sg-ntu-dr.10356-146160
record_format dspace
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Science::Medicine
Emotional Bias
Cognitive Biases
spellingShingle Science::Medicine
Emotional Bias
Cognitive Biases
Zhang, Melvyn
Vallabhajosyula, Ranganath
Fung, Daniel
Emotional bias modification for individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder : protocol for a co-design study
description Background: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder with a worldwide prevalence rate of 5%. Individuals with ADHD often tend to have difficulties with emotional regulation. The advances in experimental psychology have led to the discovery of emotional biases. Targeting emotional biases could potentially help improve the core symptoms of irritability and short-temperedness among these individuals. Emotional biases refer to the preferential allocation of attention toward emotional stimuli. A recent study reported the presence of emotional biases among individuals with ADHD when they compared individuals with ADHD with those without. Gamification technologies have been explored to help diminish the repetitiveness of the task and increase the intrinsic motivation to train. These inconsistent findings of the impact of gaming on the effectiveness of mobile interventions call for further work to better understand the needs of patients (users) and health care professionals. Objective: The aim of this research study is to collate health care professionals’ perspectives on the limitations of the existing task, and to determine if gamification elements could be incorporated, to refine the conventional intervention. Methods: A qualitative research approach, that of a focus group, will be used. Health care professionals from the Department of Development Psychiatry, Institute of Mental Health, Singapore will be invited to participate in this qualitative research. During the focus group, participants are to comment on the limitations of the existing emotional bias intervention; recommend strategies to improve the intervention; and provide their perspectives pertaining to the use of gamification to improve the intervention. Results: We expect that the study will be completed in 12 months from the publication of this protocol. Conclusions: To our best knowledge, this is perhaps one of the only few studies that have attempted to explore emotional biases among adolescents with ADHD.
author2 Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine)
author_facet Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine)
Zhang, Melvyn
Vallabhajosyula, Ranganath
Fung, Daniel
format Article
author Zhang, Melvyn
Vallabhajosyula, Ranganath
Fung, Daniel
author_sort Zhang, Melvyn
title Emotional bias modification for individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder : protocol for a co-design study
title_short Emotional bias modification for individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder : protocol for a co-design study
title_full Emotional bias modification for individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder : protocol for a co-design study
title_fullStr Emotional bias modification for individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder : protocol for a co-design study
title_full_unstemmed Emotional bias modification for individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder : protocol for a co-design study
title_sort emotional bias modification for individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder : protocol for a co-design study
publishDate 2021
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/146160
_version_ 1759856063668027392
spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1461602023-03-05T16:43:44Z Emotional bias modification for individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder : protocol for a co-design study Zhang, Melvyn Vallabhajosyula, Ranganath Fung, Daniel Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine (LKCMedicine) Family Medicine and Primary Care Science::Medicine Emotional Bias Cognitive Biases Background: Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder with a worldwide prevalence rate of 5%. Individuals with ADHD often tend to have difficulties with emotional regulation. The advances in experimental psychology have led to the discovery of emotional biases. Targeting emotional biases could potentially help improve the core symptoms of irritability and short-temperedness among these individuals. Emotional biases refer to the preferential allocation of attention toward emotional stimuli. A recent study reported the presence of emotional biases among individuals with ADHD when they compared individuals with ADHD with those without. Gamification technologies have been explored to help diminish the repetitiveness of the task and increase the intrinsic motivation to train. These inconsistent findings of the impact of gaming on the effectiveness of mobile interventions call for further work to better understand the needs of patients (users) and health care professionals. Objective: The aim of this research study is to collate health care professionals’ perspectives on the limitations of the existing task, and to determine if gamification elements could be incorporated, to refine the conventional intervention. Methods: A qualitative research approach, that of a focus group, will be used. Health care professionals from the Department of Development Psychiatry, Institute of Mental Health, Singapore will be invited to participate in this qualitative research. During the focus group, participants are to comment on the limitations of the existing emotional bias intervention; recommend strategies to improve the intervention; and provide their perspectives pertaining to the use of gamification to improve the intervention. Results: We expect that the study will be completed in 12 months from the publication of this protocol. Conclusions: To our best knowledge, this is perhaps one of the only few studies that have attempted to explore emotional biases among adolescents with ADHD. Ministry of Health (MOH) National Medical Research Council (NMRC) Published version MZ is supported by a grant under the Singapore Ministry of Health’s National Medical Research Council (grant number NMRC/Fellowship/0048/2017) for PhD training. The funding source was not involved in any part of this project. The project is funded by the Games for Health Innovation Centre (ALIVE) Serious Games Grant (SGG19/SN06), with the grant project titled “Gamified Emotional Bias Modification Intervention for Children with ADHD.” This study was made possible by a gift from the Estate of Irene Tan Liang Kheng. 2021-01-28T07:09:15Z 2021-01-28T07:09:15Z 2020 Journal Article Zhang, M., Vallabhajosyula, R., & Fung, D. (2020). Emotional bias modification for individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder : protocol for a co-design study. JMIR Research Protocols, 9(12), e24078-. doi:10.2196/24078 1929-0748 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/146160 10.2196/24078 33355536 2-s2.0-85098584124 12 9 en NMRC/Fellowship/0048/2017 JMIR Research Protocols © Melvyn Zhang, Ranganath Vallabhajosyula, Daniel Fung. Originally published in JMIR Research Protocols (http://www.researchprotocols.org), 23.12.2020. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Research Protocols, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.researchprotocols.org, as well as this copyright and license information must be included. application/pdf