Background: Anxious people show an attentional bias towards threatening information.
Purpose: It was investigated whether an attentional bias exists for cancer-related stimuli in breast cancer survivors and if different levels of fear of cancer recurrence would lead to different patterns of selective attention.
Methods: Breast cancer survivors with high (n = 35) and low (n = 32) fear of cancer recurrence were compared to 40 healthy female hospital employees. Specificity of attentional biases was investigated using a modified Emotional Stroop Task. Self-report measures were used to assess depression and anxiety, feelings of fatigue, and experienced traumas.
Results: Compared to control participants, breast cancer survivors with both high and low levels of fear of cancer recurrence showed increased interference for cancer-related words, but not for other word types.
Conclusions: The findings suggest a specific attentional bias for cancer-related words in breast cancer survivors that is independent of level of fear of cancer recurrence.