Neurocognitive flexibility, perfectionism, obsessive beliefs in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder

Objective: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a heteregenous psychiatric disorder. In this study, three possible etiopathogenic factors, neurocognitive flexibility, perfectionism, and obsessive beliefs in patients with OCD, were evaluated and compared with healthy controls. The hypothesis is neurocognitive flexibility, obsessive beliefs, and perfectionism may have a role in the formation of OCD symptoms. Furthermore, as perfectionism and obsessive beliefs increase, neurocognitive flexibility may deteriorate further. Method: The study included 66 OCD patients and 75 healthy controls with no psychiatric history. Berg Card Sorting Test (BCST), Trail Making Test (TMT) and Category Fluency (CF) Test were used to assess neurocognitive flexibility; Hewitt Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (HMPS) and Obsessional Beliefs Questionnaire-44 (OBQ-44) were administered to evaluate perfectionism and obsessive beliefs of participants. Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID-I) was administered to participants. Yale-Brown Obsession Compulsion Scale(Y-BOCS) was applied to evaluate severity of obsessions/compulsions, while Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D) was used to evaluate the severity of depression of patients. Results: Patients had high level perfectionist personality traits, and their levels of obsessive beliefs were higher than the healthy group. Trail Making Test performance was poorer in patients with OCD. There was no significant relationship between obsessive beliefs, perfectionism and neurocognitive flexibility. However, these variables differed among OCD-subtypes. Discussion: Further studies may investigate various OCD-subtypes by diversifying cognitive flexibility measurement along with biological variables.