Examining the mediating role of self-compassion in the relationship between cognitive flexibility and symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder in adults

This study aimed to investigate the mediating role of self-compassion in the relationship between obsessive-compulsive symptoms and cognitive flexibility in adults. Additionally, the study examined the relationships among obsessive-compulsive symptoms, cognitive flexibility, and self-compassion, as well as how these variables are associated with participants' age, gender, educational level, marital status, employment status, and whether they had received psychological support. Based on the principle of volunteerism, 509 people were randomly selected to participate in the study. The research utilized the "Sociodemographic Form," the "Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS)," the "Cognitive Flexibility Inventory (CFI)," and the "Self-Compassion Scale (SCS)" as data collection tools. As a result of the analyses of the study, it was found that obsessive-compulsive symptoms, cognitive flexibility and self-compassion variables had a statistically significant relationship with each other. At the end of the study, it was observed that as the severity level of obsessive-compulsive symptoms increased, participants' cognitive flexibility levels decreased and similarly, as the severity level of obsessive-compulsive symptoms increased, self-compassion levels decreased. It was found that as the cognitive flexibility levels of the participants increased, their self-compassion levels also increased. When self-compassion was included in the relationship between obsessive-compulsive symptoms and cognitive flexibility, it was observed that self-compassion played a mediating role in the relationship between obsessive-compulsive symptoms and cognitive flexibility.