What Are You Looking for? Psychometric and Experimental Analyses of Reassurance Seeking in Obsessive-compulsive Disorder

This study evaluates the efficacy and acceptability of two cognitive-behavioural interventions for reassurance seeking behaviour in obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a family accommodation reduction protocol vs. a novel support-seeking protocol. Half of participants will be randomly assigned to participate in the support-seeking intervention, whereas the other half will participate in the family accommodation reduction intervention.

Study Overview

• Status: Terminated
• Conditions: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Cognitive-behavioural therapy

Detailed Description

An existing family accommodation reduction intervention to reduce reassurance seeking behaviour in OCD (which represents treatment as usual, or TAU) is being compared to a novel support-seeking intervention to determine which is more efficacious and acceptable to participants.

The TAU protocol asks participants to make an agreement with their significant others to withhold reassurance when it is sought. It is believed that this behaviourally-based intervention encourages extinction of reassurance seeking over time by eliminating reinforcement of the behaviour by significant others.

The support-seeking intervention asks participants to move towards adaptively seeking support from a significant other to manage anxiety or distress rather than seeking reassurance. Significant others are taught to provide support rather than reassurance. It is believed that support-seeking may reduce reassurance seeking behaviour because it helps participants manage the anxiety or distress that underlies the requests for reassurance without interfering with disconfirmatory learning.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 7
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Quebec
    • Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H4B 1R6
      • Concordia University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (ADULT, OLDER_ADULT)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Diagnosis of OCD
• Engaging in reassurance seeking more than once a day about the same thing
• Willingness to allow the experimenter to contact a significant other from whom the participant seeks reassurance regularly
• Ability to read, write, and communicate in English

Exclusion Criteria:

• Current suicidal ideation/intent
• Current substance abuse
• Psychosis
• Diagnosis of bipolar disorder (I or II)
• If participants are on medication they must be on a stable dose (i.e., have maintained a consistent dose for at least three months) and agree not to change their medication regimen for the duration of the study

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: TREATMENT
• Allocation: RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: PARALLEL
• Masking: NONE

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Support-seeking intervention; Cognitive-behavioural therapy intervention that guides participants to seek support rather than reassurance; participants' significant others are asked to provide support rather than reassurance.	Other: Cognitive-behavioural therapy; Empirically-supported psychological intervention for various mental health concerns including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Includes components to foster cognitive (i.e., thinking) and behavioural changes.
Active Comparator: Family accommodation reduction intervention; Cognitive-behavioural therapy intervention that guides participants' significant others to withhold reassurance when it is requested; participants are asked to refrain from seeking reassurance.	Other: Cognitive-behavioural therapy; Empirically-supported psychological intervention for various mental health concerns including obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Includes components to foster cognitive (i.e., thinking) and behavioural changes.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Self-reported reassurance seeking behaviour	Number of times participants self-report seeking reassurance per day	5 weeks (baseline through 3 week follow-up)
Self-reported support-seeking behaviour	Number of times participants in the support-seeking condition self-report seeking reassurance per day	4 weeks (condition assignment through 3 week follow-up)
Self-reported anxiety	Level of anxiety on average per day, self-rated from 0-100	5 weeks (baseline monitoring through 3 week follow-up)
One-week follow-up: Treatment Acceptability and Adherence Scale (TAAS; Milosevic, Levy, Alcolado, & Radomsky, 2015)	Validated questionnaire assessing how acceptable participants find an intervention as well as ease of adherence.	One-week follow-up
One-week follow-up: Endorsement and Discomfort Scales (EDS; Tarrier, Liversidge, & Gregg, 2006)	Validated questionnaire assessing acceptability of and discomfort caused by an intervention.	One-week follow-up
Three-week follow-up: Treatment Acceptability and Adherence Scale (TAAS; Milosevic, Levy, Alcolado, & Radomsky, 2015)	Validated questionnaire assessing how acceptable participants find an intervention as well as ease of adherence.	Three-week follow-up
Three-week follow-up: Endorsement and Discomfort Scales (EDS; Tarrier, Liversidge, & Gregg, 2006)	Validated questionnaire assessing acceptability of and discomfort caused by an intervention.	Three-week follow-up

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in self-reported reassurance-seeking	Pre-post assessment of change in the number of times per day that participants self-report reassurance seeking behaviour from the baseline monitoring week to the follow-up assessments.	Baseline to one-week follow-up and baseline to three-week follow-up
Change in anxiety	Pre-post assessment of change in participants' self-reported anxiety ratings, as rated from 0-100	Baseline (monitoring week 1) to end of reassurance provision week (monitoring week 2)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Concordia University, Montreal

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): September 1, 2016
• Primary Completion (Actual): October 1, 2017
• Study Completion (Actual): November 1, 2017

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 14, 2016
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 19, 2016
• First Posted (Estimate): September 21, 2016

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): December 12, 2017
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 10, 2017
• Last Verified: December 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Personality Disorders; Anxiety Disorders; Compulsive Personality Disorder; Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder
• Other Study ID Numbers: 30006114

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO