Decisions and judgements in OCD
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Decisions and judgements in OCD: when both acting and not acting result in harm
IRAS ID
173528
Contact name
Zoe Kindynis
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Royal Holloway University of London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 31 days
Research summary
Evidence suggests that individuals with OCD make different decisions and judgements to individuals without OCD. For example, following an intrusive thought in everyday scenarios, individuals with OCD were found to act to prevent harm more frequently than individuals without OCD. They were also found to experience increased feelings of responsibility, worry, immorality, cause, and blame for potential harm. These differences were only present when considering situations relevant to an individual's obsessions. Such differences may be because people with OCD feel a greater responsibility for potential harm in these situations, and therefore feel compelled to try and prevent it. Alternatively, it may be because those with OCD overestimate the potential risks of harm.
A recent study by Franklin and colleagues (2009) investigated decision-making when risks of acting and not acting were presented (and when acting resulted in less harm), thus removing the potential for differences in estimations of threat between those with and without OCD. No differences were found between those with and without OCD in decisions made, which may imply that stating risks of action and inaction removed differences in decisions between the two groups. However, this study was criticised as the life-threatening scenarios used were not generalisable to everyday decisions; previous studies found that differences in decisions only exist between individuals with and without OCD in low-risk scenarios. Furthermore, individuals with OCD show differences in decisions and judgements only for situations relevant to their obsessions i.e. those which they rated as 'most disturbing', which was also not considered. Due to such criticisms, conclusions that can be drawn from Franklin’s study are limited.
Therefore, the proposed research intends to address such criticisms and explore whether decisions and judgements differ between individuals with and without OCD when risks of action and inaction are presented, for everyday scenarios relevant to individuals’ obsessions.
REC name
London - Queen Square Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/LO/1150
Date of REC Opinion
7 Sep 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion