Thought processes of patients with obsessive compulsive disorder

Pages: 935-937
Gurminder Sokhey and Gurpreet Kaur (Department of Psychology Punjabi University, Patiala, Punjab)

The present investigation aimed to study the Automatic Thought Processes of both male and female OCD patients in comparison to male and female Normal controls. For this purpose 80 OCD patients (Males=40; Females=40) were randomly selected from Psychiatric Department of Rajindra Hospital Patiala, attending OPD in the age group of 25-35 years. 80 Normal controls (Males=40; Females=40) were also randomly selected on the basis of a screening measure in the same age group from general population such as attendants and friends. OCD Patients and Normals were administered Automatic Thoughts Questionnaire (Hollon & Kendall, 1980) and a Screening measure (Harding et al., 1980) only for normals. A Two-Way Analysis of Variance with equal numbers was applied with 2 levels of disease (OCD and Normals) and 2 levels of gender (Males /Females). The obtained results revealed significant main effects of disease and gender indicating that OCD male and female patients are higher on negative Automatic Thoughts than male and female Normal controls. Further, OCD females exhibited more negative Automatic Thoughts as compared to OCD males.