Sandra Arnáez

Adolescence is a critical period for developing obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms, highlighting the need for preventive strategies. GGOC-AD is a newly adapted module for adolescents within the OCD.app mobile platform, aimed at addressing maladaptive beliefs. This pilot study evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, usability, and preliminary efficacy of GGOC-AD in the adolescent general population. A parallel two-arm pilot trial was conducted with 36 students (55.6% male; M_age = 16.25, SD = 0.5), of which 18 were assigned to the experimental group (using the GGOC-AD app, 14 days) and 18 to the control group (using the neutral GGN-AD app, 14 days). Participants from the experimental group were assessed after using the app for study feasibility, acceptability, and usability through self-reports and an ad-hoc interview. Furthermore, all participants were evaluated at baseline and post-intervention for OCD-related maladaptive beliefs, OC and emotional symptoms, and self-esteem. Quantitative and qualitative data were analyzed.The study concluded that the protocol used was feasible. Participants who used the GGOC-AD app rated it as both acceptable and usable. The preliminary efficacy results of GGOC-AD did not reveal a significant intervention effect on OC symptoms, maladaptive beliefs, emotional symptoms, or self-esteem. These findings provide valuable data for optimizing the study protocol and designing a future randomized controlled trial. This pilot study is an essential step given the critical role of usability and acceptability in driving engagement with mHealth interventions.

Aim: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental health condition that significantly interferes with the school environment. The concealment of symptoms, lack of identification, and limited knowledge about the disorder often lead to delays in help-seeking, which are associated with greater chronicity, increased interference, and poorer treatment response. Programmes that educate teachers on early detection of OCD could help identify children at risk and promote help-seeking behavior. This study analyzed the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary efficacy of the health app esTOCma from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives among teachers, as well as explored areas for improvement. Methods: A total of 19 teachers (mean age = 47.74 years, SD = 11.2) completed the intervention along with pre- and post-intervention assessments through the app. In addition, they responded to open-ended questions to share their opinions about the app. Results: Teachers took an average of 4.89 days (SD = 4.21) to complete the intervention. The app demonstrated excellent usability (M = 85.5, SD = 10.3) and was found useful by the majority of participants (89.5%), who reported satisfaction (84.2%) and stated they had learned considerably (73.7%) through its use. Upon completing the intervention, participants showed greater understanding of OCD and its treatments (MHLQ-R: z = –2.92, p = 0.004), lower levels of stigma (AQ-9: z = –3.67, p < 0.001), and a higher intention to seek professional help in case of experiencing obsessive-compulsive symptoms (GHSQ: z = –2.50, p = 0.012). Conclusions: esTOCma appears to be a feasible app in an educational context, showing high acceptability among participating teachers. Moreover, the app increases knowledge and understanding of OCD, promotes the intention to seek professional help, and reduces stigma toward the disorder. Several improvements are suggested to further enhance the app’s potential impact in educational settings.

Purpose: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a disabling mental health condition associated with significant delays in professional help-seeking. Stigma and poor mental health literacy (MHL) contribute to these delays and vary depending on OCD symptom dimensions. This post hoc analysis aimed to evaluate the efficacy of the mobile application esTOCma in reducing stigma and improving MHL and intention to seek help across autogenous and reactive OCD symptom dimensions. Methods: A post hoc analysis was conducted using pre- and post-intervention data from 208 participants from a previous crossover randomized controlled trial. Participants had been assigned to a vignette describing either autogenous or reactive OCD symptoms and to the experimental or control group. Changes in stigma (Attribution Questionnaire, Social Distance Scale), MHL (Mental Health Literacy Questionnaire), and help-seeking intention (General Help-Seeking Questionnaire) were assessed using a 2 (Group: experimental and control) × 2 (Time: T0 [pre-intervention] and T1 [post-intervention]) mixed factorial analyses of variance performed for each symptom dimension (i.e., autogenous and reactive OCD symptoms dimensions). Results: Following the intervention, significant and similar improvements in stigma, social distance, MHL, and help-seeking intention were observed in the experimental group for both OCD content dimensions. These differences were not observed in the control group. Conclusions: This post hoc study suggests that esTOCma is an effective tool for reducing stigma and misinformation about both autogenous and reactive OCD symptoms in the general community. The original study was registered on ClinicalsTrials.gov on January 11th, 2022 (NCT04777292).

Background: Obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD) is a disabling disorder, and self‐stigma negatively impacts quality of life, symptom severity and self‐esteem. esTOCma is a smartphone‐based serious game developed to increase knowledge about OCD and reduce stigma. It features 10 missions using psychoeducation, indirect contact and cognitive restructuring. Players help 10 characters escape the OCD stigma monster. Aims: To explore, in individuals with a self‐reported diagnosis of OCD, the feasibility, acceptability and preliminary effectiveness of esTOCma to change self‐stigma and knowledge about OCD, OC severity, guilt, quality of life and self‐esteem. Materials and Methods: A single‐arm pilot study with 130 participants who completed esTOCma and pre‐, post‐ and 3‐month follow‐up assessments. Results: Half of participants spent 9–10‐days playing with the app and most of them found it useful/very useful and easy to use. Self‐stigma was associated with higher OC symptoms, guilt and lower quality of life, self‐esteem and knowledge about OCD. After using the app, participants showed lower levels of self‐stigma, OC symptoms and guilt, and higher levels of quality of life, self‐esteem and knowledge about OCD. Changes were maintained or increased at a 3‐month follow‐up. Discussion: esTOCma is a feasible and acceptable app that could help people with OCD to increase their knowledge and understanding of the disorder, dismiss self‐stigma and OC symptoms, and at the same time increase self‐esteem and quality of life. A replication of the study with a control sample is needed to validate our findings. Conclusion: Tools like the esTOCma app, accessible 24/7, offer a means to tackle self‐stigma detrimental effects.

Background: Obsessive–compulsive (OC) disorder is a debilitating disorder with a high delay in help‐seeking that could be associated with two barriers that may differ between OC content dimensions: public stigma and mental health literacy.Objectives: We aim to describe and analyze the differences among OC content dimensions in public stigma, social distance desire, mental health literacy, and help‐seeking intention in a sample of the mental health‐naïve population.Methods: A total of 487 participants from the Spanish community with no previous knowledge of or experience with OCD were randomly allocated one of six vignettes describing a person with OC symptoms of one out of six contents (i.e., aggression/harm; sexual; religious/blasphemous/immoral; contamination/washing; doubts/checking; or superstition/symmetry/order). After reading the vignette, participants completed the following questionnaires associated with their vignette: Attribution Questionnaire, General Help‐Seeking Questionnaire, Social Distance Scale, and Mental Health Literacy Questionnaire.Results: There were significant differences among OC content dimensions on the variables of interest. Aggression/harm OC content was associated with the highest public stigma and discriminating desire, and together with the religious/blasphemous/immoral OC contents were associated with the highest social distance desire. Although no differences appear between contents on intention to seek for formal treatment, participants would request less informal support for their sexual OC content than for the other categories. Contamination, doubts/checking, and superstition/symmetry/order OC contents were more frequently identified as OCD, although only around 50% or less of the sample identified the sexual, superstition/symmetry/order, doubts/checking, and religious/blasphemous/immoral OC contents as a mental health problem.Conclusions: Interventions to reduce stigma and increase help seeking are necessary and should consider OC heterogeneity.

Las alteraciones motoras son un área esencial dentro del estudio de la psicopatología. No obstante, son muy visuales por lo que son difíciles de explicar. Un video educativo donde se represente estas alteraciones podría resultar muy útil para su correcta explicación y comprensión por parte del alumnado. El objetivo de este trabajo ha sido explorar como valoran los estudiantes una actividad de visionado y resolución de un video y comparar dos formas de implementarla en clase basadas en dos tipos de aprendizaje: por descubrimiento y significativo. Un grupo de alumnos que cursaban la asignatura de Psicopatología (n= 35) realizaron primero el comentario y la resolución colaborativa del video y luego escucharon la explicación teórica (aprendizaje por descubrimiento); mientras que otro grupo (n= 62) recibió la explicación teórica primero y luego se mostró el video (aprendizaje significativo). Se recogieron varias medidas de interés para explorar la valoración del estudiantado. Los resultados muestran puntuaciones altas en todas las variables evaluadas con relación al visionado del video. En cuanto a la metodología de implementación, el aprendizaje por descubrimiento resulta ligeramente mejor ya que genera mayor sentido de autoeficacia. En conclusión, esta innovación curricular se debería seguir realizado en cursos posteriores.

La enseñanza de competencias clínicas en la asignatura de psicopatología del Grado en Psicología requiere métodos que mejoren la autoeficacia y la satisfacción del alumnado, tales como el uso del paciente simulado y resolución de casos clínicos. El objetivo fue evaluar la percepción del alumnado tras el visionado de un material audiovisual compuesto por un caso clínico simulado y su resolución, y analizar las variables predictoras del nivel de satisfacción con el aprendizaje. 271 estudiantes de dos cursos académicos de la asignatura de Psicopatología visualizaron los vídeos sobre un caso clínico, y cómo realizar una historia clínica y el psicopatograma. Previamente, se les invitaba a intentar resolver el caso clínico simulado. Posteriormente, respondían en una escala de 1 a 10 a preguntas sobre las variables principales del estudio. Los resultados mostraron que: (1) la puntuación media de todas las variables fue superior a 8.4; (2) la utilidad percibida, el interés y la autoeficacia predijeron positivamente la satisfacción con el aprendizaje, explicando un 79% de su varianza. El alumnado valoró positivamente la utilización del material audiovisual que incluía un paciente simulado y su resolución. La satisfacción con el aprendizaje se relacionó con la utilidad, el interés y la autoeficacia percibida

Background: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a disabling disorder associated with high interference in people’s lives. However, patients with OCD either do not seek help or delay seeking help. Research suggests that this could be explained by poor mental health literacy about the disorder and the associated stigma. Objective: This study aims to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and preliminary effectiveness of a mental health mobile app, esTOCma, developed to improve knowledge about OCD and its treatment, increase help-seeking intention, and reduce stigmatizing attitudes and social distance associated with OCD. Methods: We used preintervention, postintervention, and 3-month follow-up assessments in this single-arm pilot intervention. Overall, 90 participants were recruited from the community using the snowball sampling method. We used esTOCma to defeat the “stigma monster” over the course of 10 missions. The participants completed the sociodemographic information and Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory–Revised at preassessment and an acceptability questionnaire at postassessment. All other measures were completed at the preassessment, postassessment, and 3-month follow-up (ie, the Spanish Mental Illness Stigma Attribution Questionnaire–27, the General Help-Seeking Questionnaire, the Social Distance Scale, and the Mental Health Literacy Questionnaire). Results: Of the 90 participants from the community that were assessed for eligibility, 86% (n=78) were allocated to intervention. Of these 78 participants, 79% (n=62) completed the game and answered the postintervention assessment (completer group). Overall, 69% (43/62) of the participants also completed the 3-month follow-up assessment. The participants completing the study were older (P=.003) and had a higher baseline knowledge of OCD (P=.05). The participants took an average of 13.64 (SD 10.50) days to complete the intervention, including the pre- and postassessments. The participants spent an average of 4.56 (SD 3.33) days completing the 10 missions included in the app. Each mission took a mean of between 2 (SD 3.01) and 9.35 (SD 3.06) minutes. The app was rated as useful or very useful by the vast majority of participants 90% (56/62). Moreover, 90% (56/62) of the participants reported that they had learned or learned a lot, and 98% (61/62) of the participants reported that they would recommend the app to a friend. Repeated measures ANOVA (43/62, 69%) showed that after the intervention participants showed an increased knowledge of mental health and intention to seek help as well as fewer stigmatizing attitudes and less social distance. Conclusions: Preliminary data show that esTOCma is a feasible and acceptable app, and after completing its 10 missions, there is an increase in the understanding of OCD and help-seeking intention along with a decrease in the social stigma and social distance associated with OCD that lasts for at least 3 months. The results support the potential of technology-based interventions to increase the intention to seek help and reduce the stigma associated with OCD. A larger, community-controlled study is also recommended.