Investigating the effectiveness of attention bias modification intervention on anxious attachment style, empathy, cognitive flexibility and emotional self-disclosure in medical personnel of tehran army hospital 505

Hospital staff faces higher levels of stress, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, those with an anxious attachment style, low empathy, and poor cognitive flexibility and emotional self-disclosure experience more difficulty during this period. It is hence necessary to focus on these factors among personnel of hospitals.

This study aimed to investigate an attention bias modification (ABM) intervention and its effects on anxious attachment style, empathy, cognitive flexibility, and emotional self-disclosure among personnel of army 505 Hospital.

This was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest/follow-up design with test and control groups. The study population consisted of all nurses working in 505 Hospital from September2021 to June2021. 36 of whom were selected as participants through convenience sampling. The participants were asked to complete the Experience in Close Relationship Scale (ECR-S) (Bernnan et al., 1998), the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI) (Davis, 1983), the Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (CFI) (Dennis and Vanderwall, 2010), and the Emotional Self-Disclosure Scale (ESDS) (Snell, 2001). Then the participants were randomly assigned to test and control groups (18 in each group). Participants in the test group attended five sessions of the ABM intervention (2 sessions per week) using the dot-probe task. The participants in both groups were asked to fill out the research questionnaires once again immediately after the end of the intervention and two months later. Data analyzed by mixed analysis of variance.

The results demonstrated that the ABM intervention significantly increased empathy, cognitive flexibility, and positive emotional self-disclosure (p<0.01) and significantly reduced anxious attachment style and negative emotional self-disclosure (p<0.01) in the test group. The same effects were observed in the follow-up stage.

ABM intervention has positive effects on hospital staff. Using this intervention is effective in controlling the style of anxious attachment and emotional self-disclosure, creating empathy and cognitive flexibility.