Comparison of the Effectiveness of Emotional and Neutral Working Memory Training on Cognitive Flexibility and Intolerance of Uncertainty in People with OCD.

The effect of COVID-19 pandemic in the world has posed a serious threat to the mental health of people with OCD. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of emotional working memory training (EWMT) and neutral working memory training (WMT) on improving cognitive flexibility (CF) and intolerance of uncertainty (IU) in patients with practical obsession. The research design was quasi-experimental and consisted of two experimental groups, a control group, pre-test and post-test. The sample group consisted of 42 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder referred to Heiman and Fooladi clinics in Mashhad in 1400 who were selected by convenience sampling method and then randomly divided into three groups of 14 people. CF Questionnaire and IU Questionnaire were administered as a pretest. Then EWMT for the first group and WMT for the second group were performed for 20 sessions each and the control group did not receive any intervention. After that, the post-test was performed. The results of MANCOVA indicate a significant effectiveness of EWMT and WMT on the variables of CF and IU in people with OCD (P <0.01). Also, EWMT was significantly more effective in improving IU than WMT (P <0.01) and the effectiveness of these two interventions was the same on the CF variable. According to the findings, it can be concluded that emotional processing of working memory has a decisive role in the IU and it seems that neutral processing of working memory forms the basis of cognitive function of CF.