Skip to main content

Emotion and adherence to treatment in people with asthma: An application of the emotional Stroop paradigm

Jessop, Donna C., Rutter, Derek R., Sharma, Dinkar, Albery, Ian P. (2004) Emotion and adherence to treatment in people with asthma: An application of the emotional Stroop paradigm. British Journal of Psychology, 95 (Part 2). pp. 127-147. ISSN 0007-1269. (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:4355)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.

Abstract

This study explored whether an emotional Stroop paradigm might represent an appropriate means of assessing individuals' emotional representations of asthma. In addition, the opportunity was taken to investigate whether emotional representations of asthma, as assessed by this method, were associated with adherence to inhaled preventative medication. An asthma Stroop task was devised which comprised three sets of stimuli: asthma symptom words, general negative words, and neutral words. Three groups of participants were compared on their performance on this task: individuals with asthma, individuals without asthma, and individuals without asthma who had been primed about the condition. It was found that individuals with asthma experienced significantly more interference when colour-naming the asthma symptom words, but not when colour-naming the general negative words. Furthermore, their performance on the asthma Stroop task was associated with self-reported adherence levels. Specifically, individuals who reported the highest and lowest levels of adherence displayed more interference when colour-naming the asthma symptom words than individuals with intermediate levels of adherence. It is concluded that the emotional Stroop paradigm might provide an objective and sensitive means of assessing individuals' emotional representations of illness. Additionally, it is proposed that emotional responses to illness should be assessed and included in research designed to explain health behaviours and, furthermore, that such research should not assume that any relationship between emotional representations and health behaviours will be linear.

Item Type: Article
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User: C.A. Simms
Date Deposited: 12 Jun 2008 17:02 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 09:42 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/4355 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Rutter, Derek R..

Creator's ORCID:
CReDIT Contributor Roles:

Sharma, Dinkar.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0082-1285
CReDIT Contributor Roles:
  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.