Iman Hafeez, Ellie Voge and Anna Reihl, “Comparison of Control Conditions in a Randomized Controlled Trial for Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms”
Mentor: Han Joo Lee, Psychology, Letters & Science (College of)
Poster #79
Control groups in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) are essential to determine the source of treatment effect. This study investigated the effects of control groups on primary outcome (reduction in obsessive-compulsive symptoms) and secondary outcome (reduction in general emotional distress) in an RCT for mobile-based training on obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms. The RCT included 2 control conditions: Stress Management Psychoeducation (SMP) and Waitlist (WL). Participants in SMP completed an identical structure to the active group, without the therapeutic ingredient. Participants in WL only completed weekly assessments. All participants completed the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21), and the Dimensional Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (DOCS) before and after the training. A repeated measures ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of time on DASS-21 at post-training (F (1, 20) = 18.682, p <0.001, η² = 0.483). However, there was no significant time by group interaction effect (p = .549). A repeated measures ANOVA revealed a significant main effect of time on DOCS at post-training (F (1, 20) = 9.112, p = 0.007, η² =0 .313). Although there was no significant time by group interaction effect, we conducted a paired samples t-test for exploratory purposes. There was a significant pre- to post- decrease in DOCS in SMP (t(12) = 2.860, p = 0.007, d = 0.793), but not in WL (p = 0.069). The findings indicate that there was no difference between SMP and WL in reducing emotional distress. This highlights the importance of including WL in an RCT, as participants may show improvement in their emotional distress due to passage of time and other non-therapeutic factors. DOCS scores significantly decreased in SMP but not in WL, indicating that SMP may have more of an impact than WL. Further research is needed to improve SMP’s potency in reducing emotional distress.