The effectiveness of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy on severity of symptoms and Function of children with obsessive-compulsive disorder

Obsessive-compulsive disorder affects all aspects of the lives of children and these effects are less considered in the health and clinical system, so the aim of this study was to determine the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy on the severity of symptoms and Function of children with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Methods and Materials: 

The present study was a quasi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test with 3-month follow-up and control group. The statistical population of the study included all children with obsessive-compulsive disorder aged 8 to 12 years in Esfahan in 2019, along with their mothers at the time of the study, of which 20 children with their parents, after an authentic psychiatrist or psychologist diagnosed them with obsessive-compulsive disorder and they obtained at least a score of 14 on the Childrenchr('39')s Yale-Brown OCD Scale, were selected based on Purposive sampling method and randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups. The experimental group received acceptance and commitment therapy treatment for 10 sessions of individual, but the control group did not receive any intervention. Instruments used in the study included Childrenchr('39')s Yale-Brown OCD Scale, Childrenchr('39')s Global Assessment Scale and Child Obsessive Compulsive Impact Scale – Revised. To analyze the findings, inferential statistics methods of analysis of repeated measures were used.

Comparison of experimental group with control group showed that the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder were significantly reduced in the experimental group compared to the control group and the improvement of childrenchr('39')s overall function in the post-test and follow-up stages was confirmed (p≤.0.05). so that 71% and 63% of the changes in overall functioning and Total score of symptom severity are affected by acceptance and commitment therapy, respectively. But the effect of acceptance and commitment therapy on family and social functioning was not significant (P≥0.05).

Acceptance and commitment therapy is effective in reducing symptoms and improving overall function in children with obsessive-compulsive disorder.