RUHS, Jaipur, PB B.Sc Nursing Entrance-2018
Mental Health Nursing
Easy

Obsessive compulsive disorder is best managed by?

Appeared in: RUHS, Jaipur, PB B.Sc Nursing Entrance-2018

Explanation

  • Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is the most evidence-based and effective psychotherapy for OCD.
  • A specific type of CBT, Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP), is considered the gold standard for treatment.
  • ERP works by gradually exposing the patient to their obsessional triggers (exposure) while helping them resist the urge to perform compulsive rituals (response prevention).
  • This process leads to habituation, where the anxiety associated with the obsession decreases over time without the need for the compulsion, thus breaking the OCD cycle.

Why Other Options Were Wrong

  • Option A: Focuses on unconscious conflicts and has limited evidence for treating the core symptoms of OCD. There is no rigorous evidence that a psychodynamic approach is useful in treating OCD.
  • Option B: It is designed to address problems in interpersonal relationships and is primarily used for depression, not the specific mechanisms of OCD.
  • Option D: Provides emotional support but lacks the specific, structured techniques required to target and reduce obsessions and compulsions effectively.

Related Visual

Visual explanation — Related Visual
Clinical Relevance
  • Nursing practice connection: This is primarily an exam-oriented knowledge point with limited direct bedside application, so retain First-line psychotherapeutic management of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) as background academic context rather than a clinical decision trigger.
  • Nurses play a crucial role in reinforcing CBT/ERP principles, such as coaching patients during exposure exercises and discouraging ritualistic behaviors.
  • It is vital for nurses to not participate in or enable a patient's rituals (e.g., providing reassurance for a checking compulsion), as this undermines the therapy.
  • What if? If a patient with OCD also has severe depression, Interpersonal Psychotherapy might be added to the treatment plan to address the depressive symptoms, but CBT/ERP would remain the core treatment for the OCD.
How to Approach the Question
  • Identify the core disorder in the question: 'Obsessive compulsive disorder'.
  • The keyword is 'best managed,' which asks for the first-line, most effective treatment.
  • Recall or determine the gold-standard psychotherapy for OCD based on evidence.
  • Evaluate the options: CBT is a broad category of evidence-based therapies. Psychodynamic, interpersonal, and supportive therapies have different focuses and are generally not first-line for OCD.
  • Select Cognitive Behaviour Therapy as it is the most well-established and recommended treatment for OCD, with a specific, highly effective component called ERP.
Concept Tested & Keywords
  • Concept Tested: First-line psychotherapeutic management of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD).
  • Stem keywords: Obsessive compulsive disorder, best managed
  • Lead-in keywords: best
  • Negative lead-in flag: false

Question ID

QprkioeDp24qurX_VS7NHD

Reference Book

E6 Robert Boland, Marcia L. Verduin - Kaplan and Sadock's Comprehensive Text of Psychiatry-Wolters Kluwer Health (2024) (pp 1-16525 of 16525) p. 5919-5921

E6 Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics(2024) — Volume 1 p. 274-276

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