Remote Treatment of Obsessive­Compulsive Disorder: Results from 3 Trials Demonstrating the Efficacy of Guided and Self­Guided Administration

Purpose: Effective treatments for OCD exist, however there are many barriers to accessing these treatments. An innovative way to reduce many of these barriers is to provide treatment remotely. The OCD Course is an 8­week cognitive and behavioural treatment program that can be delivered remotely. Three studies will be presented which investigated the efficacy of both guided and self­guided delivery of the OCD Course.

Methods: Study 1: 21 participants with OCD were treated online with the OCD Course in a clinician­-guided format using an open trial design

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Study 2: 56 participants with OCD were allocated to receive clinician­assisted online treatment, clinician-­assisted bibliotherapy treatment, or waitlist control, using a RCT design.

Study 3: 19 participants with OCD received self­guided online treatment with automatic email reminders using an open trial design.

Results: Study 1: Participants improved significantly on the Yale­Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (YBOCS) with a within­group effect size (Cohen’s d) of 1.5 at post­treatment. Participants rated the program as highly acceptable.

Study 2: Participants in both active treatment groups improved significantly compared to the waitlist control group. Within group effects sizes on the YBOCS at post­treatment was 1.2 for the bibliotherapy group, 1.1 for the internet group and 0.10 for the waitlist control group. There were no significant differences between the treatment groups in acceptability to participants.

Study 3: Participants improved significantly on the YBOCS with a within­group effect size for those who completed the treatment of 1.2. Participants found the course acceptable.

Conclusions: The results of these 3 studies demonstrate the efficacy of both guided and self­guided administration of remote treatment for OCD. These findings have important implications for public policy administrators as remote treatment is more cost effective and overcomes many of the barriers associated with face­to­face treatment.