Fear of Guilt and Severity of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in Adults: The Mediating Role of Self-Compassion

Description

Preeti Pandey¹, Mehfooz Ahmad², and Shweta Jha³ (Amity Institute of Behaviour and Allied Sciences, Org: Amity University Haryana, India^1,2 and Prismatic-Crafting your Mental Health, Bengaluru, Karnataka³)

Fear of guilt, a cognitive vulnerability involving anticipatory emotional distress, and self-compassion, a self-regulatory capacity may be relevant to OCD severity. Examining their relationship with OCD severity may provide greater clarity in understanding OCD and refining treatment approaches. The objective of the study was to examine the relationships between fear of guilt, self-compassion, and OCD severity, and to test whether self-compassion mediates the association between fear of guilt and OCD severity. A cross-sectional study was conducted using standardized measures. Male and female adults (18-45 years) with a clinical diagnosis of OCD. Yale Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale-II (Storch et al., 2010), Fear of Guilt Scale (Chiang et al., 2016) and Self-compassion Scale-Short Form (Raes et al., 2011) were used to assess OCD severity, fear of guilt and self-compassion respectively. Pearson correlation (SPSS) and mediation analysis (PROCESS macro for SPSS) were used in this study. Self-compassion was significantly and negatively correlated with both fear of guilt and OCD severity. In mediation analysis, both the total effect and direct effect of fear of guilt on OCD severity were non-significant, but a statistically significant indirect effect was seen between fear of guilt and OCD severity through self-compassion. These findings suggest that fear of guilt relates to OCD severity indirectly through its association with self-compassion rather than through a direct pathway. Interventions targeting self-compassion may offer clinical utility by fostering self-regulatory capacities that reduce the impact of guilt-related vulnerabilities on OCD severity.