Cognitive Self-Awareness and Episodic Memory in Patients with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and Healthy Individuals

Authors

1 Lecturer, Department of Psychology, Payame Noor University, Tehran, Iran

2 Ph.D. Student, Department of Educational Psychology, School of Educational and Psychological Sciences, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran

Abstract

Background & Aims: Recent studies have indicated memory dysfunction in individuals with obsessive
compulsive disorder (OCD). The present study aimed to examine the relationship between cognitive selfawareness
and episodic memory performance in patients with OCD and healthy individuals.
Methods: In the present study, 30 patients with OCD and 30 normal individuals in the Shiraz Professional
Center of Psychiatry, Shiraz, Iran, were randomly selected. The Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale
(Y-BOCS), clinical interview, Wells' Metacognitions Questionnaire, and verbal, function, and mental
imagination encoding were used. In order to compare groups in terms of episodic memory and cognitive
self–awareness and investigate the relationship between variables, MANOVA and the mediation analysis
were, respectively, used.
Results: Findings showed lower episodic memory performance in participants with OCD, but indicated
higher cognitive self-awareness in these individuals as compared with normal subjects. Moreover, episodic
memory performance played a mediator role between cognitive self-awareness and OCD.
Conclusion: High self-awareness in individuals with OCD explains both obsessional pathology and
decreasing of episodic memory performance. Metacognition treatments can decrease self-awareness and
increase thought control. 

Keywords

Journal of Kerman University of Medical Sciences
Volume 21, Issue 1
November and December 2014
Pages 32-41

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