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Differential
efficacy of the several therapeutic components of the Clark's treatment
for the panic attack
Financial
Entity: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia. Dirección General de Investigación
Científica y Técnica
Project
Code: PS91-0136
Duration:
From June 1992 to June 1993
Head
Researcher: Ph.
D. Cristina
Botella
Summary:
Panic Disorder is one of the most frequent anxiety disorders in the
last years. The few studies comparing differential efficacy of various
pharmacological and psychological treatments for panic seem demostrate
that better treatment for panic disorder is the cognitive-behavioral
treatment, combining cognitive therapy, exposition to external and
internal stimulus and breathing retraining. The cognitive-behavioral
treatment developed by Clark and Salkovskis includes all this factors.
However, it would be interesting to know which is the terapeutic
variable that explain better the efficacy of cognitive-behavioral
treatment. The central purpose of this research is to find empirical
evidence about this question, by comparing the therapeutic result of
applicating the different therapeutic variables.
Anxiety
disorders: Basic Research in psychopathology and psychological
treatments
Financial
Entity:
Fundación Caixa Castelló-Universitat Jaume I
Project
Code:
B-46-PS
Duration:
From June 1993 to June 1994
Head
Researcher: Ph.
D. Cristina
Botella
Summary: Anxiety
disorders are one of the psychological problems that affects to a great
proportion of population. Actually, one of the psychological approaches
that is receiving more attention in this field is the cognitive approach.
This approach supposes that these disorders are originated or maintained
by cognitive distortions or biases (Eysenck, 1992) Particularly, it is
argued that anxiety states are associated with systematic distortions in
cognitive processing of emotional stimulus (Mathews, 1989), and the
distortions provoke a greater request of processing resources because of
the presence of threat signs, this fact interferes with the
request of the tasks the individual is facing.
Several
experimental tasks are used to test these hypothesis, like dichotic
listening, modified version of “Stroop” paradigm, points detection
task, lexical decision, homophonic words task or modified version of
lexical activation paradigm. Most of these tasks use words with several
emotional contents as stimulus material. However, these tasks have been
designed, initially, in English language and for university population.
That is the reason why first objective in cognitive research about
anxiety disorders is to adapt this material to Spanish language and to
extend it to general population. Not considering this methodological
requirement could invalidate the experimental designs made. Therefore,
the core question we have asked ourselves at this project, has been to
analyze the normative values of a great number of words that constitute
a representative sample from Spanish language, trying to provide facts
about their emotional value ( discriminating anxiety and depression
emotions) and about their “use frequency”, their imaginability and
understandability. At the next sections we expose how we have elaborated
this “pool” of words and the results we have found.
Differential
efficacy of a brief cognitive treatment program for the panic disorder
Financial
Entity: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia .Dirección General de Investigación
Científica y Técnica
Project
Code: PS92-0108
Duration:
From June 1993 to June 1994
Head
Researcher: Ph.
D. Cristina
Botella
Summary:
In the last year, authors working about panic disorders from a
cognitive perspective have obtained results that prove the therapeutic
effectiveness of this approach. It seems, so, that some psychological
treatments for panic have been developped, allowing to avoid the
problems associated to tradicional pharmachological treatments such as
relapses and secondary effects. Novertheless, since some cognitive-behavioral
programs including a wide variety of therapeutic echniques have been
developed, some authors fhave stated that we need to get a greater
accuracy with ours interventions. We need to get the maximum accuracy
with a lower cost. In this sense, we have been working about a group
application of a treatment for panic disorder as well as about the
differential effectiveness of each therapeutic component in Clark and
Salkovskis’ program. Our purpose in the present research is centered
in developping a briefer form of cognitive treatment, enhancing the most
effectives techniques in this treatment and using a self-help manual for
patients.
Information
processing related to the threat in the social phobia disorder and
quantity of change achieved by the psychological treatment
Financial
Entity: Generalitat Valenciana. Direcció
General d'Ensenyaments Universitaris i Investigació.
Project
Code:
GV-2421-94
Duration:
2 years (1995-1996)
Head
Researcher: Ph.
D. Cristina
Botella
Summary:
The
general aim of this work is to study core questions related to the
psychopathology and treatment of social phobia. More specifically, we
aim to study the attentional biases found in this disorder and to what
extent they change following psychological treatment. For this purpose
psychological tests will be used to evaluate the cognitive content, as
well as experimental tasks (two versions of the Stroop task) which are
clearly relevant in psychopathology literature. Moreover, we have
designed two attentional tasks to evaluate attentional aspects which are
central in anxiety disorders. Such measures will allow us to know, first,
wethwe those biases occur in social phobia, and to what extent they are
specific of this disorder. Second, they will allow us to advance in our
knowledge of therapeutic changes, one of the core questions in
psychological treatment research, for by using these measures we will be
able to answer questions about the specificity of the changes following
psychological treatment.
Information
processing related to the threat in the panic disorder and quantity of
change achieved by the psychological treatment
Financial
Entity:
Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia. Dirección General de Investigación
Científica y Técnica
Project
Code:
PB94-1093
Duration:
2 years (1995-1997)
Head
Researcher: Ph.
D. Cristina
Botella Arbona
Summary:
The general aim of this work is to study core questions related to
the psychopathology and treatment of panic disorder. More specifically,
we aim to study the attentional biases found in this disorder and to
what extent they change following psychological treatment. For this
purpose psychological tests will be used to evaluate the cognitive
content, as well as experimental tasks (two versions of the Stroop task)
which are clearly relevant in psychopathology literature. Moreover, we
have designed two attentional tasks to evaluate attentional aspects
which are central in anxiety disorders. Such measures will allow us to
know, first, wethwe those biases occur in panic disorder, and to what
extent they are specific of this disorder. Second, they will allow us to
advance in our knowledge of therapeutic changes, one of the core
questions in psychological treatment research, for by using these
measures we will be able to answer questions about the specificity of
the changes following psychological treatment.
Virtual
Reality and Clinical Psychology: "Development of a high realism virtual
environment and 3D digitalization of the bodily movement. Application to the
claustrophobia treatment.
Financial
Entity: Generalitat Valenciana. Direcció
General d'Ensenyaments Universitaris i Investigació.
Project
Code: GV-D-ES-17-123-96
Duration:
2 years (1997-98)
Head
Researcher: Ph.
D.
Cristina Botella Arbona
Summary:
The general aim of this work is to develop an virtual environment for its
application , inside the clinical psychology field, to claustrophobia
treatment and to analyse the elements that could improve the realism of VR.
This general aim is concreted in a specific clinical objectives series:
1.
To test VR utility as therapeutic effective tool for claustrophobia
treatment.
1.1
To verify if VR can constitute an special environment of “virtual
exposition”. This environment would bring as novelty the creation of a
protected context where the patient could start to explore, to experiment
and, definitively, to act, without any doubt all of these aspects that form
a part of “essential ingredients of therapy”.
1.2
To analyze the differential effectiveness of VR compared with the
next psychological treatments:
a)
Imagination exposition.
b)
Living exposition. (?)
2.
To study the “judgment reality” attribution in VR context.
2.1
To analyze the role of several factors in the attribution of that judgment:
a) Internal correspondence (correspondence between behaviour and emotion)
b)External correspondence (correspondence between behaviour and its
consequences) and c) the perception of one-self in virtual context.
2.2
To analyze the relation established between these three elements (additive,
sequential,…)
2.3 To study these elements capability to improve realism in VR.
Development
of high realism methods to Virtual Reality systems in PC environments.
Application to Clinical Psychology
Financial
Entity:
IMPIVA (Instituto de la Pequeña y
Mediana Empresa). Generalitat Valenciana. Proyecto
cofinanciado por el Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER).
Project
Code: 971801003556
Duration:
2 years (1997-98)
Head
Researcher:
Ph.
D.
Cristina Botella Arbona
Summary:
This project pretends to contribute to the development of methods which
permit to obtain high realism virtual environments in virtual reality
systems. These methods are directed to get the maximum immersion sensation
for the system’s user to receive. One of the central objectives of this
project is the development of these virtual environments to be executed in
hardware stage of few/medium cost, type compatible PC.
To
obtain these realistic environments we purpose the use of models of global
illumination by radiosity. That’s the reason why the other objective of
this project is to reduce the estimating times of the radiosity algorithms
by optimisation methods and parallel estimations by PVM protocols, in this
way we avoid the use of expensive parallel hardware architectures.
We
have chosen to apply this methods
to the clinical psychology area. The election of this area in this
project is for three basic reasons:
-
It
is necessary to achieve high realism in the environments presented to
the patients, this is a big challenge for the radiosity methods
to try and to develop.
-
The
special social and economic impact that the psychological disorders have
in the current society.
-
The
enormous utility of virtual reality as a tool in the development of
clinical psychology informatic applications.
Inside
the clinical psychology field we have elected one disorder to apply this
methods: the claustrophobia. Then, other central objective of this project
is to study the viability, by developing a prototype, a psychological
treatment system for claustrophobia by high realism virtual reality in
hardware environment type PC.
Study
of differential characteristics in social phobia, delimiting clinical
subtypes and psychological interventions strategies
Financial
Entity:
Fundación Caixa Castelló - Universitat
Jaume I
Project
Code: P1B97-02
Duration:
3 years (1998-2000)
Head
Researcher: Ph.
D. Cristina
Botella
Summary.
The social phobia is one of the most relevant anxiety disorders. However,
this is the disorder that less research have obtained until recently.
The existing research prove that it’s necessary to consider the
variability and heterogeneity of the problems that are included in the
diagnostic category of Social Phobia. This differences affect to the
clinical presentation and to the development of the problem and they can
have implications to the treatment of this individuals, because they can
have different therapeutic responses to different intervention
components or strategies. The general objective of this project consist
in: A) Identifying and clarifying these elements that allow to
difference types of patients and types of problematic in the Social
Phobia, both because of their psychopathology (clinical presentation of
the problem, beginning, development of the disorder, etc.) and because
of their treatment ; B) Depending of the typology identified we will
design
psychological strategies of intervention more individualised that
permit to achieve an improvement statistically significant in all the
patients and achieve an improvement clinically significant, so it that
at the finish of the treatment all the subjects achieve significant
changes in all their problematic areas.
Development
of Virtual Reality products with incorporation of haptic systems for the
evaluation and treatment of Agoraphobia Disorder, Fear of Flying and
Eating Disorders
Financial
Entity:
Ministerio de Educación y Cultura.
Dirección General de Proyectos de Investigación Científica y Técnica.
Fondos FEDER.
Project
Code: 1FD97-0260-C02-01
Duration:
2 years and half (1998-2001)
Head
Researcher: Ph.
D. Cristina
Botella
Summary:
The present project follows to obtain commercial products, using
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality technology, in order to assess and
treat three psychological disorders: agoraphobia, fear of flying, and
eating disorders. The commercial products resulting from this project will
be neforceable in PC environments of medium/low cost to obtain a massive
usage of this technology in the Clinical Psychology arena. In the
case of Fear of Flying, the final product will allow that patient overcome
his/her problem in a much more economic fashion than the one offered by
the therapies of traditional exposure. Concerning Agoraphobia, that
consist in a set of many phobias, the finantial profitability of the
product is guaranteed upon unifying in one system several scenarios that
the professional handles in his/her own office, with no need of making the
patient to move. Finally, Eatong Disorders are the only ones that lead
directly to the death of the patient. Thus, the development of a
commercial product that is an useful clinical tool in the assessment and
treatment, will be very important.
The
virtual settings include the main elements of these psychopathologies (open
environments, flying situations, body, food, etc.). in order to increase
the level of visual realism and inmersion and as a technological innovate
issues in this field, hign realism techniques based on global illumination
techniques like radiosity and haptic systems of movement (as haptic
walking platforms, motion platforms and 3D body motion capture) will be
developed and used.
The
participation of specialised companies in each one fo the performance
areas above mentioned, guarantees the technological transfer of the
results and its commercial development.
Development
of a specific therapeutic component for body image in the general
treatment of eating disorders. Standard methods and virtual reality
application.
Financial
Entity:
Ministerio de Sanidad y Consumo.
Instituto de Salud Carlos III. Subdirección General de Fondo de
Investigación Sanitaria.
Project
Code: (9I043.01)
Duration:
3 years (1999-2001)
Head
Researcher: Ph.
D. Cristina
Botella
Summary:
The main purpose of this study is to design and to test the
effectiveness of a specific component for assessing and the treating body
image (BI) in eating disorders (ED). This component will be developed in
two versions or formats: 1) standard BI treatment; 2) BI treatment by
means of Virtual Reality (VR). The standard BI treatment and BI treatment
by means VR will be added as additional components to the ED general
treatment (in clinical sample), resulting in 5 intervention conditions.
The sample will be composed by a minimum of 30 ED patients according to
DSM-IV and by a group of at least 30 people evaluated as a subclinial
population or at high risk because of their BI distorsions. The samples
will be randomly distributed in each one of the intervention conditions.
The study will be carried out at the Day Hospital (Hospital Provincial,
Castellón) –clinical sample- and at Servicio de Asistencia Psicológica
(UJI) –subclinical sample_. Treatment in the most complex condition will
be for one year, distributed in sessions that cover the targets of this
psychopathologies: weight stabilisation, eating habits normalisation,
correcting distortions and dysfunctional attitudes in BI etc. Before the
intervention, it would be necessary to adapt and deesign the assessment
and treatment protocols both standard version and RV formats. The
assessment protocols will be composed, according to their different
formats; by: general protocol for ED, adaptation of Cash’s (1996) and
elaboration of assessment setting in VR. The treatment protocols,
according to components and samples will be composed by: Wilson et al.,
(1997) treatment for bulimia; Garner et al., (1997) treatment for
anorexia; Adaptation of BI program of Cash (1996); and design and
development in VR for BI treatment.
Telemedicine
and portable virtual environments for clinical psychology
Financial
Entity:
V Programa Marco Europeo
Project
Code: IST-2000-25323-
VEPSY UPDATED
Duration:
3 years (2001-2003)
Head
Researcher: Ph.
D. Cristina
Botella
Summary: The main goal of the project is to prove the technical viability of using
portable and shared Virtual Reality systems in clinical psychology. The
project will provide both innovative VR based tools for the treatment of
patients, clinical trials to verify their viability and action plans for
dissemination of this results. The selected disorders are: panic
disorder, social phobia and agoraphobia; obesity, bulimia and binge-eating
disorders; male impotence and premature ejaculation.
In particular
VEPSY will reach its goals by:
a) designing/tuning
and developing 4 VRMS clinical modules to be used with the Virtual
Reality Modular System (VRMS) defined by two successful 4FP EC funded
projects. The selected disorders are:
-
panic
disorder and agoraphobia
-
male
impotence and premature ejaculation
-
obesity,
bulimia and binge-eating disorders
-
social
phobia
To ensure the
broadest user base, the developed modules will be available both as
shared telemedicine tools available through Internet by using a plug-in
for the most common browsers (Explorer and Navigator) and as portable
tools based on Speed-Step notebook PCs. This choice ensures low costs,
wide availability, an open architecture and the possibility of
benefiting from the improvements planned for these machine by INTEL and
AMD, mainly faster processor and enhaced multimedia support.
b) Defining new
treatment protocols for the use of the clinical modules in assessment
and therapy. In doing this the project will follow a User Centered
Strategy where feedback from individual users (and from groups
representing users) will play a key role in driving the design and
implementation process.
c) Testing their
efficacy at a scale of operation representin reality. In particular the
project plans a 9-month Demonstration phase involving no less than 30
patients and a 15-month Validation pahse involving no less than 20
patients from at least two different EC countries.
d) Disseminating
the obtained results to Extended Audience. Both clinicals and end users
will be reached.
Internet
based telemedicine system for the treatment of specific phobias using of
collaborative virtual environments.
Financial
Entity:
Ministerio de Educación y Cultura.
Dirección General de Enseñanza Superior e Investigación Científica.
Project
Code: TIC2000-0184-P4-03
Duration:
2
years (2001-2003)
Head
Researcher: Ph.
D. Cristina Botella Arbona (UJI)
and Ph.
D. Mariano Alcañiz Raya (UPV)
Summary:
The main objective of the present project is to design and to
test the assessment and treatment programs for phobias to small animals
(rats, spiders, birds and cockroaches) by means of Virtual Reality, in
self-applicated format, using internet as computer support. In order to
test their effectiveness, 30 patients with diagnosis of specific phobia
according to DSM-IV criteria (APA, 1994), will be randomly assigned to
one of the folloewing three conditions: a) “traditional” in vivo
exposure; b) tele-exposure using internet, and c) tele-exposure using
stereoscopic glasses. Special caution will be taken in confirmation of
the diagnosis and of the effectiveness of the treatment. As a result. A
market-product with an important impact both in the new technologies and
health fields will be obtained.
Advances
in the exposure therapy: the use of the emotional processing of
acrophobic fear.
Financier
Entity: Fundación Caixa Castelló - Universitat Jaume I
Project
Code: P11B2001-19
Duration:
3 years (2001-2004)
Head
Researcher: Ph. D. Cristina Botella Arbona
Summary:
Up to now empirical evidence has demonstrated the effectiveness of
exposure technique in reducing pathological fears. However, it is still
unclear which mechanisms are responsible of this reduction. Several
authors, like Foa & Kozack (1986) have emphasised the role of the
emotional processing in the reduction of fear. According to these authors,
in order to produce the emotional processing two conditions are needed: 1)
activating the fear structure; 2) providing incompatible information with
some of the elements existing in the fear structure. In this sense, it has
been stated that the elaboration of the meaning of the feared stimulus by
the phobic individual may enhance the effects of the exposure treatment.
The current work is focused on a specific phobia: acrophobia (fear of high
places). The aims are: (1) To delimit an strategy in order to activate in
a more complete and broader way as possible the pathological structure of
the acrophobic fear, and (2) To enhance the effects of the exposure
therapy for acrophobia, researching whether the facilitation of emotional
processing lead to an improvement in the therapeutic results obtained with
this treatment technique, and if this new exposure procedure is less
aversive than the traditional exposure treatment. In order to do this,
participants will be given, by means of virtual realty techniques,
incompatible information with the propositions that are supposed to be
presented in the pathological fear structure. For this study, participants
from a broad sample who meet the diagnosis criteria for claustrophobia
will be selected. In the case that the utility of the stated hypotheses in
the current project were to be proved, the obtained results would have
important repercussions since it would be justified the inclusion of the
appropriate variations for the application of the traditional exposure
technique, and more effective results would be achieved. Therefore, the
recommendations for researching made in the “validated empirically
treatments and treatment based on evidence” field would be being taken
into account (Chambless et al., 1996; 1998; Chambless & Hollon, 1998;
Nathan & Gorman, 1998; Labrador, Echeburúa & Becoña, 2000).
Furthermore, additional theoretical challenges would be postulated that
would work as heuristics to open new research lines.
“Engaging
media for mental health applications” (EMMA)
Financier
Entity:
V Programa Marco Europeo
Project
Code:
Duration:
30 months (2002-2004)
Head
Researcher: Ph.
D. Cristina
Botella Arbona (UJI) and Ph. D. Mariano Alcañiz Raya (UPV)
Summary: EMMA project will allow studying the relationship between presence and
emotions. Its objectives and scope can be summarizad in the following
goals. As long term goals, EMMA will focus on the development of “mood
devices” able to induce and enhance several moods on clinical and non
clinical samples, and on the investigation of the use of engaging media
for the development of “new vital nararratives” with hign emotional
impact. As medium term goals, it will study the emotional impact of
synthetic experiences characterized by a high degree of presence.
Finally, as short term goals, EMMA will use new and emerging
technological tools up to now never used as determinants of presence,
such as tele-inmersion, intelligent agents, augmented reality
visualitations paradigms and mobile computing and portable wireless
devices, as well as other tools that will.
EMMA project will
investigate how presence mediates or generates affective and emotional
responses and also how emotional responses can be manipulated to control
the extent and nature of presence. It will design, develop and test
different mediated environments, from more traditional to other based on
more emerging technologies that generate and enhance presence and
emotions. EMMA will contribute to different objectives of Action Line
VI.2.2. It pretends to
identify the critical parameters the influence and enhance presence and
emotions in synthetic environments, contributing to develop a theory of
presence. Besidess, it will analyze the effect that different users,
contributing to the development of novel media that convey a sense of
“being there”. EMMA will develop several “mood devices” able to
induce different forms of mood enhacement. The purpose is to create
“significant life experiences” that are there and thus users can
test that reality, and change it. These inductions are targeted to three
different real users groups: users who suffer from psychological
problems, users with acute restricted mobility and general population.
The tools that will be used are divided into two main groups: one group
used a standard measurement of presence and another group composed of
different way s for the presentation of the “mood environments” to
the users.
Advances
in the exposure therapy: the use of the emotional processing of
claustrophobic fear.
Financier
Entity: Fundación
Caixa Castelló - Universitat Jaume I
Project
Code: BSO2002-03425
Duration:
3 years (2002-2005)
Head
Researcher: Ph. D. Cristina Botella Arbona
Summary:
Up to now empirical evidence has demonstrated the effectiveness of
exposure technique in reducing pathological fears. However, it is still
unclear which mechanisms are responsible of this reduction. Several
authors, like Foa & Kozack (1986) have emphasised the role of the
emotional processing in the reduction of fear. According to these authors,
in order to produce the emotional processing two conditions are needed: 1)
activating the fear structure; 2) providing incompatible information with
some of the elements existing in the fear structure. In this sense, it has
been stated that the elaboration of the meaning of the feared stimulus by
the phobic individual may enhance the effects of the exposure treatment.
The current work is focused on a specific phobia: claustrophobia (fear of
closed spaces). The aims are: (1) To delimit an strategy in order to
activate in a more complete and broader way as possible the pathological
structure of the claustrophobic fear, and (2) To enhance the effects of
the exposure therapy for claustrophobia, researching whether the
facilitation of emotional processing lead to an improvement in the
therapeutic results obtained with this treatment technique, and if this
new exposure procedure is less aversive than the traditional exposure
treatment. In order to do this, participants will be given, by means of
virtual realty techniques, incompatible information with the propositions
that are supposed to be presented in the pathological fear structure. For
this study, participants from a broad sample who meet the diagnosis
criteria for claustrophobia will be selected. In the case that the utility
of the stated hypotheses in the current project were to be proved, the
obtained results would have important repercussions since it would be
justified the inclusion of the appropriate variations for the application
of the traditional exposure technique, and more effective results would be
achieved. Therefore, the recommendations for researching made in the
“validated empirically treatments and treatment based on evidence”
field would be being taken into account (Chambless et al., 1996; 1998;
Chambless & Hollon, 1998; Nathan & Gorman, 1998; Labrador, Echeburúa
& Becoña, 2000). Furthermore, additional theoretical challenges would
be postulated that would work as heuristics to open new research lines.
Study
of attention biases in virtual environments in specific and social phobia.
Financier
Entity: Ministerio
de Ciencia y Tecnología
Project
Code:
Duration:
3 years (2002-2005)
Head
Researcher: Ph. D.
Rosa María Baños Rivera
Summary:
Current
cognitive theories about anxiety disorders propose that these individuals
selectively pay attention to information related to their fears and
worries, and these “attentional biases” play an important role in the
aethology and maintenance of these disorders. The aim of this project is
to study the occurence of these biases in individuals who suffer from a
specific phobia (spider phobia) and from social phobia (fear of public
speaking) in environments, which simulate real life situations (by means
of virtual reality techniques). To achieve this goal, a task will be
desgned (carried out in a virtual world) to assess if there are
differences in visual attention to threatening stimuli versis neutral
stimuli among indivioduals who suffer from spider fear or publi speaking
fear compared to individuals without any psychological problems. It will
be also studied if this bias occurs at an authomatic level (non-conscious)
or al a controlled level (conscious), and if once the danger is detected,
the bias still occurs. In order to do so, we eill use supra and subliminal
presentations of the feared and neutral stimuli in the virtual environment
(to assess if the attention is different when the threatening stimuli are
not consciously recognised), and we will also use an “Eye tracker”
attached to the Virtual Reality helmet that monitors what the individual
is looking at and how long. Besides, it will be studied if there are
differences in this bias between two different fears, concretely, the aim
is to determinate if people with spider fear focus their attention
“towards” the threat and people with fear of public speaking focus
their attention “away from” the threating external stimuli and if
differences exist between them in the maintenance of attention towards
threatening simuli. Finally, we will also study if psychological
treatments (exposure therapy) are able to eliminate or reduce this bias.
To achieve this aim, a VR exposure program will be applied for each kind
of fear and the participants’ performance in the experimental task will
be asessed again after the treatment. The most relevant innovation of this
project is that the attentional performance is not measured by means of
the presentation of simple atimuli (solated words or illustrations), but
it is assessed is a “realistic” environment that simulates a real
situation, using Virtual Reality techniques, which “modelate” real
environments, and which allow a rigorous stimuli presentation and a
accurate response recording.
Study
of personality profiles as vulnerability factors in the onset of body images
disturbances and eating disorders.
Financier
Entity:
Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales
Project
Code:
04I015.01/1
Duration:
3 years (2003-2006)
Head
Researcher: Ph. D.
Azucena García-Palacios
Summary:
Eating
disorders have become an important health problem that affects most young
women. Despite the interest and advances achieved in the last years with
regard to the treatment of these disorders, issues as prevention an
effective treatment are still far to be achieved. The study of risk
factors of eating disorders can help to improve the understanding of these
disorders, as web as the improvement and design of effective treatment
programs. This project has this aim, concretely the study of personality
profiles in eating disorders in order to determine specific profiles in
these disorders which could play a role in their onset and which could
predict important clinical issues. Our study includes the comparison of
clinical samples, normal samples and high risk samples in two assessment
periods.
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