I do not know what else to do: caregivers’ perspective on reassurance seeking in OCD

Excessive Reassurance Seeking (ERS) is an under-researched and poorly understood behavior that resembles the compulsive behaviors that are typically seen in OCD. ERS can be complex, persistent, extensive, debilitating and may dominate people’s interactions. In addition to resembling compulsive checking in OCD it may also have the effect of transferring responsibility to others. Caregivers are frequently asked to take part in a range of rituals as part of the OCD sufferer’s problem, often seeing it as a way of supporting the sufferer. We are still in the early stages of understanding the factors that elicit and maintain these responses in caregivers. The present investigation considered the interpersonal components of ERS by applying an in-depth analysis using qualitative methods in the context of an interview of caregivers who provide reassurance to OCD sufferers. Ten interviews were conducted and analysed using thematic analysis. Seven overarching themes were identified as important in the experience of being asked for and providing reassurance. These concern factors such as how people seek reassurance, how they process it, why other people give it and so on. A particularly pervasive theme was caregivers’ experience of frustration in the face of ERS. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed

Carer's perception of and reaction to reassurance seeking in obsessive compulsive disorder

The purpose of the present study is to explore the experience of being asked for reassurance from the perspective of carers of OCD sufferers, and to examine its relationship to sufferers’ reassurance seeking by a direct comparison with data obtained from the person they normally offer reassurance to. Forty-two individuals with OCD and their carers completed alternate versions of the Reassurance Seeking Questionnaire. Result suggest that carers report most commonly providing reassurance when asked to do so, and the frequency of their reassurance provision is associated with how carefully sufferers seek reassurance, rather than their OCD symptom severity. The carer's perspectives on the impact of reassurance provision was accurate; both sufferers and carers perceive that reassurance works only temporarily, but even if the anxiety-relieving effect of reassurance decreases in the medium term, it is likely to be perceived as beneficial because carers accurately perceived that sufferers would feel much worse if they refuse to provide reassurance. The present study is the first to quantitatively investigate carer’s experiences of reassurance provision, and elucidate why carers feel the need to provide it