Abramowitz, J. S., Foa, E. B. & Franklin, M. E. (2003). Exposure and ritual prevention for obsessive-compulsive disorder: Effects of intensive versus twice-weekly sessions. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 71(2), 394-398.

    This study tried two different types of exposure and ritual prevention (ERP) with its participants. Forty participants diagnosed with OCD received 15 sessions of ERP. Twenty participants received treatment every day for three weeks. The other twenty participants received treatment twice weekly over a period of 8 weeks.
    The study found that intensive ERP is more effective in the short term. However, they also found that those treated with intensive ERP had a better chance to relapse. There is little difference in the effect of treatment when the participants followed up post-treatment. The authors also felt that their sample size was insufficient because it could not detect small differences between intensive ERP and twice-weekly ERP.
    I found this study interesting because although the intensive ERP was more effective for the short term, it was not effective post-treatment. I thought that it would have been the exact opposite. I thought when first reading this that the intensive ERP would be most effective post-treatment.

Foa, E. B., Huppert, J. D., Leiberg, S., Langner, R., Kichic, R., Hajcak, G. & Salkovskis, P. M. (2002). The obsessive-compulsive inventory: Development and validation of a short version. Psychological Assessment, 14(4), 485-496.

Savage, C. R., Deckersbach, T., Wilhelm, S., Rauch, S. L., Baer, L., Reid, T. & Jenike, M. A. (2000). Strategic processing and episodic memory impairment in obsessive compulsive disorder. Neuropsychology, 14(1), 141-151.

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