Effectiveness of Exposure/Response Prevention plus Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing in Reducing Anxiety and Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms Associated with Stressful Life Experiences: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is known as a non-psychotic mental disorder resistant to treatment. It has been found that eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) can increase the effectiveness of its standard treatments.

The current study aimed at evaluating the impact of exposure/response prevention (ERP) combined with EMDR as a treatment method on patients with OCD who had experienced stressful life events by comparison to ERP alone.

The present randomized controlled trial was conducted among 60 OCD patients who experienced stressful life events and were resistant to medication treatment. The participants were randomly assigned to the ERP plus EMDR (n = 30) and ERP (n = 30) groups. The Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive scale (Y-BOCS) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) were completed before and after the intervention, as well as, after a follow-up period of three months. The scores were compared using the chi‐squared test, analysis of covariance (ANCOVA), and repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA).

ANOVA results demonstrated that both treatment protocols had a significant effect on the reduction of anxiety and severity of OCD symptoms, while the results of ANCOVA showed a significantly higher effect of ERP plus EMDR compared to the ERP protocol (P = 0.001), and sample attrition was significantly higher in the ERP group (P < 0.05).

The ERP plus EMDR protocol compared to the ERP protocol showed a higher rate of completion and efficacy in OCD treatment.