Cognitive flexibility does not predict symptom reduction in Internet interventions

• PURPOSE: Little is known about whether individual differences in executive functions predict outcomes after Internet-delivered psychological treatments. We hypothesized that learning and utilizing skills taught in treatment is reliant on cognitive flexibility, as measurable by perseverative errors (PE) on the 64-card Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST). We tested this by correlating PE scores with symptom reduction following treatment for social anxiety disorder (n=116), depression (n=42) and tinnitus discomfort (n=28). METHOD: In all groups, the WCST was administered online prior to treatment and partial correlation (controlling for age) were calculated between PE and percentage symptom reduction on the respective primary outcome measure. RESULTS: Number of PE did not correlate with pre-treatment symptom scores in any group. There was no generic association between symptom reduction and PE, and, after outlier removal, no group-specific associations either. CONCLUSIONS: Lower cognitive flexibility does not appear to impede symptom reduction in Internet-delivered psychological treatments.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

executive functions

cognitive flexibility

predictors

Psychology

psykologi

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

kon (subject category)