Effectiveness of religious psycho-education integrated cognitive behavioral group therapy in the treatment of the patients with religious obsessions and compulsions

The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of Religious Psycho-education -4T Model- Integrated Cognitive Behavioral Group Therapy in the treatment of religious obsessions and compulsions, to compare its effect with the Cognitive Behavioral Group Therapy and to examine whether the 4T intervention makes a significant difference. Study was conducted in an experimental design. Yale Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, Brown Assessment of Beliefs Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory, Penn Inventory of Scrupulosity, Obsessive Beliefs Questionnaire and Thought–Action Fusion Scale were used as data collection tools. 32 OCD patients meeting the inclusion criteria were randomly assigned to two groups as, 4T Integrated CBGT and CBGT. Gender, education, medication and type of autogenous or reactive were controlled. The results of the study showed that; both groups were strongly effective in the treatment of OCD, this effect continued during the 1-month follow-up period, and there was no significant difference between the two groups of treatment, except that 4T produced better insight with moderate effect. Considering the in-group effects, in general, it was seen that 4T Integrated CBGT was more effective in insight and obsessive beliefs, while CBGT was more effective in both general anxiety and religious obsessions/anxieties. In the weeks of the 4T intervention, it was found that 4T was more effective than CBT in obsessive and compulsive symptoms and depressive symptoms in addition to obsessive beliefs. In future studies, integrating the 4T model directly to ERP instead of cognitive therapy and allocate more space to 4T in the general treatment may help us validate the statistical significance of the specific effects of 4T. Keywords: Religious OCD (Scrupulosity), Cognitive behavioral psychotherapy, Group therapy, Religious psycho-education, 4T model