The Effectiveness of Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation on the Pattern of Quantitative Electroencephalography and the Symptoms of Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

The purpose of this study was the effectiveness of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) on the quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) and the symptoms of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). In this quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest design with control group, from patients with OCD referred to psychiatric and psychological clinics in Kerman in 2019-2020, 40 patients were selected by available and according to purposive sampling and were randomly assigned in to experimental and control groups. After the diagnosing OCD in patients using research user,s guide for the structured clinical interview and recording QEEG data from 19 locations of their brains, in the experimental group, based on QEEG, for each patient was assigned a treatment protocol and this group underwent tDCS treatment (25 sessions, 60-minutes). Participants were evaluated twice (pre-test and post-test) by The Yale-Brown obsessive-compulsive scale (Y-BOCS) and QEEG recording and data were analyzed by covariance analysis (ANCOVA) and Paired-Samples t Test. The results showed that tDCS is effective in improving the symptoms of OCD patients and modifying the brain wave pattern of patients. Therefore, this method may be used as an effective and uncomplicated therapeutic strategy.