Metacognitive Therapy, Neurofeedback and Treatment With Fluvoxamine on Cognitive Attentional Syndrome and Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies in Patients With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Background: Due to the lack of enough researches on the impaired underlying mechanisms in the obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and also existence of new psychological therapies such as metacognitive therapy and neurofeedback, the application of mentioned mechanisms in the new therapies can be introduced as a possible effective option with more long term effects to treat OCD. Objectives: The current study aimed to compare the effectiveness of metacognitive therapy, neurofeedback and treatment with fluvoxamine on the cognitive attentional syndrome and cognitive emotion regulation strategies in the patients with OCD. Methods: In a quasi-experimental study, on the clients referring to two psychiatry and psychology centers in Kerman city, Iran, 40 patients with OCD were selected using purposive sampling and randomly divided into three experimental groups and one control group. Each of the experimental groups was under treatment for 10 weeks, while the control group was just followed-up during the mentioned period. The subjects were assessed before and after treatment using Yale-Brown obsessive-compulsive scale, cognitive attentional syndrome scale and cognitive emotion regulation questionnaire. Results: The results of covariance analysis and paired comparisons of the groups indicated that metacognitive therapy and neurofeedback had equal effects on the reduction of cognitive attentional syndrome scores, and little effect of treatment with fluvoxamine on this variable. In addition, the results indicated the effectiveness of metacognitive therapy and neurofeedback on cognitive emotion regulation strategies and the effectiveness of fluvoxamine on the maladaptive strategies. It should be noted that metacognitive therapy was more effective than neurofeedback to improve cognitive emotion regulation strategies of patients with OCD. Conclusions: The current research showed that metacognitive therapy and neurofeedback can be used as effective treatments on underlying mechanisms of the obsessive-compulsive disorders such as cognitive attentional syndrome and cognitive emotion regulation strategies.

Keywords:

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder , Cognitive Attentional Syndrome , Cognitive Emotion Regulation Strategies , Metacognitive Therapy , Neurofeedback , Fluvoxamine