Attentional reactions to an MI: the impact of mood state, worry, and coping style

This study investigated the possible development of an attentional bias to cardiac-related words in subjects who recently experienced a myocardial infarction (MI). It was hypothesized that cardiac-related stimuli would have attention-capturing characteristics for post-MI subjects, and this bias would be moderated by level of anxiety, degree of cardiac-related worry, and the subject's coping style. Post-MI subjects (n = 33) and matched controls (n = 31) participated in an attentional search task. The post-MI subjects failed to show the predicted group increases in attention allocated to cardiac stimuli, but a difference between groups still occurred as the control group exhibited directed inattention to cardiac stimuli. Subsequent analysis indicated those post-MI subjects who did evince an attentional bias toward cardiac stimuli had higher monitoring scores on a self-report measure of coping style. Level of emotional distress and cardiac-related worry failed to predict attentional bias for the post-MI subjects.