Standard psychological treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) typically involves the behavioural-based therapy exposure and response prevention (ERP). This study compared the effectiveness of ERP with the recently developed cognitive therapy-based treatment package, Danger Ideation Reduction Therapy for obsessive-compulsive checkers (DIRT-C) (Vaccaro, Jones, Menzies, and St Clare). Both treatments were delivered in 14 1-hr individual weekly sessions. Post-treatment intention-to-treat analysis revealed large statistically significant improvements for participants in both ERP (n = 22) and DIRT-C (n = 28) conditions. However, treatment effect sizes for change in OCD symptom severity at post-treatment were greater for DIRT-C than for ERP (3.74 versus 2.89). In addition, at post-treatment assessment, significantly more participants who received DIRT-C were recovered compared with those who received ERP (43% versus 14%). Similarly, at 6-month follow-up, treatment effect sizes for change in OCD symptom severity were greater for DIRT-C than for ERP (3.9 versus 2.76). This study provides further evidence of the usefulness of the DIRT-C package for people with OCD checking subtype. Future research investigating DIRT-C is warranted.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	treatment, obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety, exposure and response prevention, danger ideation reduction therapy
Research Division:	Medical and Health Sciences
Research Group:	Clinical Sciences
Research Field:	Psychiatry (incl. Psychotherapy)
Objective Division:	Health
Objective Group:	Health and Support Services
Objective Field:	Mental Health Services
UTAS Author:	Wootton, BM (Dr Bethany Wootton)
ID Code:	90822
Year Published:	2014
Web of Science® Times Cited:	6
Deposited By:	Psychology
Deposited On:	2014-04-25
Last Modified:	2014-08-08
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