Behavior therapy of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) aims to reduce avoidance,
rituals, and discomfort in OCD-relevant situations. The Behavioral Avoidance Test
(BAT) measures these behavior-related outcomes in individually challenging OCD-related
situations. The association of the BAT with OCD severity measures and its relevance
for treatment outcome is, however, still unclear. The current study investigates with
a retrospective analysis of a subsample of a pilot study, (1) if reactions on the BAT
are related to OCD severity measures in an OCD sample (n = 28), (2) if treatment
with two variants of cognitive-behavior therapy (exposure and response prevention vs.
metacognitive therapy) changes the BAT scores and (3) if these changes as well as
pretreatment BAT avoidance are relevant for OCD treatment outcome as measured by
the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS). Participants rated avoidance,
ritual, and discomfort in three individually challenging OCD-related situations before and
after therapy. For one of these situations, BAT dimensions were rated by the therapist
and an independent rater in addition to the patients’ ratings. Correlational analyses
found significant correlations between BAT discomfort and OCD severity measures like
the Y-BOCS. A repeated measures ANOVA with pre- and posttest scores showed that
all three BAT dimensions significantly decreased during both treatments. Hierarchical
regression analyses (controlling for Y-BOCS pretest scores) revealed that changes in BAT
discomfort as well as pretreatment BAT avoidance scores predicted the Y-BOCS posttest
score. These findings suggest that the BAT is a distinct measure of behavior-related
outcomes partly being relevant for OCD treatment outcome.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:84491 |
| Date | 31 March 2023 |
| Creators | Hansmeier, Jana, Haberkamp, Anke, Glombiewski, Julia A., Exner, Cornelia |
| Publisher | Frontiers Research Foundation |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 1664-0640, 781972 |
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