The role of attachment styles and marital adjustment in predicting relationship-centered and partner-focused obsessive compulsive symptoms

It is known that insecure attachment in close relationships in adulthood affects the quality of the relationship and predicts various psychopathological symptoms. Although relationship-centered and partner-focused obsessions and compulsions are a concept that has been introduced to the literature in recent years, it is seen that they are considered psychopathology. Even if the studies that deal with relationship and partner-oriented obsessions and compulsions associated with insecure attachment are evaluated within the scope of romantic relationships, they have not been investigated for married individuals. The aim of this study is to investigate the predictive role of adult attachment styles and marital adjustment on relationship-centered and partner-focused obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The sample of the study consists of 380 married individuals (200 females, 180 males) between the ages of 22-70 (M=40.75, SD=10.57) living in Istanbul. Within the context of the study, the participants were given the Sociodemographic Information Form, Experiences in Close Relationship Scale-Revised (ECR-R), Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS), Relationship Obsessive Compulsive Inventory (ROCI) and Partner-Related Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms Inventory (PROCSI). Pearson correlation analysis, independent-samples T-Test, one-way ANOVA analysis, simple linear regression, and multiple regression analysis were performed. According to the findings, participants' anxious and avoidant attachment style and marital adjustment significantly predicted relationship-centered and partner-focused obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The findings of the study are expected to guide clinicians in considering the role of attachment and marital adjustment in improving the relationship and partner related type of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which is thought to occur in romantic relationships.