Determining the Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy on Academic Self-Efficacy and Its subscales in Female Students with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Obsessive–compulsive disorder is one of the most common mental disorders that affects all aspects of life, including academic performance. One of the concepts that can play an essential role in the treatment of the obsessive–compulsive disorder is self–efficacy. Academic self–efficacy is part of the belief in general self–efficacy, which refers to the ability of individuals to perform activities to achieve educational goals. One of the most important and effective factors for disease control is self–efficacy. By increasing self–efficacy, people adapt better to their illnesses, and this adaptation reduces stress and psychological abnormalities. Various approaches and treatments have been proposed for treating obsessive–compulsive disorder and its associated disorders. Cognitive–behavioral therapy is one of these therapies. Given the prevalence of obsessive–compulsive disorder and its negative psychological consequences, such as reduced self–efficacy, it is necessary to plan for intervention to prevent its reduction. So, this study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of cognitive–behavioral therapy on academic self–efficacy and its components in students with obsessive–compulsive disorder.

This quasi–experimental study has a pretest–posttest design with a control group. The study population consisted of all female students studying in secondary high schools in Zahedan City, Iran, in the academic year 2020–2021 who were suffering from obsessive–compulsive disorder according to the cut–off criterion of the Maudsley Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder Inventory (Hodgson & Rachman, 1977). Out of them, a sample of 30 students with obsessive–compulsive disorder was randomly selected by the available sampling method (15 students in the experimental group and 15 in the control group). The samples were according to the criterion of practical obsessive–compulsive disorder score (above the cut–off point of 20) on the Maudsley Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder Inventory (Hodgson & Rachman, 1977). The inventory was prepared online by Google software and WhatsApp and were distributed among students. The inclusion criteria included obtaining a score higher than 20 in Madsley Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder Inventory (Hodgson & Rachman, 1977), being 15 to 18 years old, studying in the secondary high school, providing informed consent, and having a favorable physical and mental condition to participate. The exclusion criteria were no concomitant illness, failure to receive psychological medication during the past month or during the study, and lack of interest in participating in the study. In this study, the participants of the two groups completed Academic Self–Efficacy Questionnaire (Jinks & Morgan, 1999) in the pretest and posttest. The subjects in the experimental group received cognitive–behavioral therapy in eight 60–min sessions once a week. However, for the control group, no intervention was presented. The research data were analyzed by descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) and inferential statistics (multivariate and univariate analysis of covariance) in SPSS software version 16 . The significance level of statistical tests was considered 0.05.

The results showed that after adjusting the pretest scores, there was a significant difference between the mean scores of the control and experimental groups in the academic self–efficacy (p<0.001) and its subscales of talent (p<0.001), effort (p<0.001), and context (p<0.001). The effect of cognitive–behavioral therapy on the increase of talent subscale was 86%, effort 90%, context %92, and academic self–efficacy %92.

Based on the effectiveness of cognitive–behavioral therapy on promoting academic self–efficacy and its subscales of talent, effort, and context, counseling centers and schools are recommended to use this training to improve academic self–efficacy in students with obsessive–compulsive disorder.