Based on Exposure and Response Prevention \u2013 the gold-standard treatment for OCD \u2013 the program challenges participants to climb the metaphoric \u2018OCD Mountain\u2019 and gradually reduce the use of compulsive rituals to reduce their anxiety.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople with OCD experience obsessions that are hard to dismiss and cause significant anxiety and distress. These include thoughts they are contaminated with germs, vivid images of something terrible happening to a loved one or thoughts they are a bad person. It is important to note these thoughts are unwanted,\u201d explains lead researcher Professor Clare Rees.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn response, the individual usually completes repetitive behaviours \u2013 compulsions \u2013 to reduce their distress. For example, if the intrusive thought is their mum getting sick, the young person might complete mental rituals, such as repetitively thinking \u2018I love you, mum\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cSchoolwork can also be affected; a young person might be caught up in writing perfect sentences because they have the fear that if they don\u2019t something terrible may happen to a loved one.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, what happens is that the person then falsely believes they must do a checking ritual to prevent the feared outcome.\u201d<\/p>\n
The OCD? Not Me! program tackles these compulsive rituals in eight stages, based on Exposure and Response Prevention treatment modules, from \u2018Getting Ready\u2019 to \u2018Base Camp\u2019 and all the way to \u2018Reaching the Summit\u2019.<\/p>\n As each stage is completed, parents are simultaneously given supplementary resources to ensure they understand their child\u2019s symptoms.<\/p>\n The Curtin-led program is unique because it is fully automated, meaning participants do not have to interact with a therapist. Rees says this automation, along with the program\u2019s interactive elements, have been key to its success.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are a number of significant obstacles to accessing evidence-based treatment for OCD. These include a lack of clinicians with expertise in treating the disorder, long waiting lists, cost of treatment and, in many cases, the practical difficulty and the fear participants have of attending face-to-face sessions,\u201d Rees explains.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are aiming to make effective treatment more easily available to greater numbers of young people, before the problem becomes more entrenched and difficult to shift. Exposure with Response Prevention means we start by asking somebody with OCD to wash their hands for eight minutes, instead of 10 minutes, and so on.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want young people to see OCD as a challenge they can overcome as opposed to a medical condition they are stuck with, so that\u2019s why we structured the program to feel like an adventure.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also renamed some common therapeutic strategies to fit in with the metaphor of a mountain climbing expedition; for example, controlled breathing became the \u2018Breathing Control Regulator\u2019 and psychoeducation became \u2018Mountain Guidebook\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n The research project began in 2013<\/a>\u00a0after Rees and her team \u2013 fellow Curtin researchers Dr Rebecca Anderson and Dr Amy Finlay-Jones \u2013 were awarded more than $460,000 from the Commonwealth Department of Health. This number later increased to $640,000 as the department chose to extend the funding.<\/p>\n The team decided on an open trial design, as opposed to a controlled trial design, to directly compare the symptoms experienced by the young people from before they participated in the program to when they finished it.<\/p>\n Overall, more than 50 young people completed the majority of the program, with the research team observing that the participants\u2019 OCD symptoms decreased in intensity over the duration of the program.<\/p>\n \u201cWe found the program resulted in statistically and clinically significant reductions in the severity of symptoms, as well as reductions in the amount of interference the symptoms cause in daily life, such as getting to school on time or the amount of time needed to take a shower,\u201d Rees says.<\/p>\n Rees\u2019 team are now planning the next phase of the research, where they are hoping to create two apps based on the OCD? Not Me! program: one for clinicians working with young people and one for the young people themselves.<\/p>\n![\"Example](\"https:\/\/www.curtin.edu.au\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/OCD-article-logbook.jpg\")