Comparing Attention Bias Modification With Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors in Patients With Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is the fourth most common psychiatric disorder. It consists of symptoms, including intrusive thoughts, rituals, behaviors, preoccupations, and compulsions. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of attention bias modification and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in reducing the symptoms of OCD.

 study population comprised patients with OCD referring to the outpatient clinic of Amir Kabir Hospital in Arak City, Iran. Of them, 80 patients were randomly assigned to the two groups. The first group received the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and the other group received the treatment modality to determine the effectiveness of the Yale-Brown OCD scale and dot-probe task tests.

 The Research Ethics Committee of Arak University of Medical Sciences approved this study (Research Ethics Code: IR.ARAKMU.REC.1396.284). 

 Treatment of attention bias modification in comparison with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors did not show a significant difference in the reduction of attention bias (P=0.377). Also, a significant difference between the two groups in reducing the symptoms of OCD (P=0.007), indicates that selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors are more effective in diminishing the symptoms of OCD. Besides the attention bias modification decreased the symptoms of OCD, but these results were not significant (P=0.228)

 Attention bias modification is a significant improvement in reducing attention bias and can be used with other interventions. However, it appears that the reduction in the severity of OCD symptoms, as against this intervention, continues to be the preferred treatment for pharmacotherapy.