Responsibility Attitudes in Obsessive-Compulsive Patients: The Contributions of Meta-Cognitive Beliefs and Worry

Background: Obsessive patients are distressed by intrusive thoughts, which are related to unreal threats. These patients feel that they are responsible for harming themselves and others. While controlling worry and meta-cognitive beliefs, the present study aimed at comparing the responsibility attitudes in obsessive compulsive patients with those in normal subjects to determine whether the difference in responsibility attitudes between two groups was significant. Methods: A group of 15 patients were compared with normal subjects (n=15) who matched the patient group in terms of gender, age and education. All subjects filled the Responsibility Attitude Scale, the Penn, State Worry Questionnaire and the Meta-cognition Questionnaire -30. The findings were analyzed using descriptive statistics as well as student t and ANCOVA tests. Results: Responsibility attitudes in obsessive patients were significantly higher than those in normal subjects (P<0.001), when patient worries and meta-cognitive beliefs were not controlled. However, after controlling patient's worry and meta-cognitive beliefs there was no significant difference between responsibility attitudes in normal and obsessive–compulsive group. Conclusion: The findings might suggest that responsibility attitude is not strongly related to obsessive-compulsive symptoms. It seems that it is a characteristic caused by basic meta-cognitive beliefs, because the relationship between the responsibility and the symptoms was dependent on meta-cognition. Therefore, in studying the etiology and treatment of obsessive compulsive disorders focus on the responsibility attitudes alone cannot be very helpful.