Treatment of Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Utilizing Parent-Facilitated Acceptance and Commitment Therapy

Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) has been used with promising results for adults with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). There are currently no published studies utilizing ACT for pediatric OCD. An investigative pilot study utilizing a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design examined the extent of treatment effects when ACT is employed for pediatric OCD. Three children under the age of 12 were enrolled in a nine-session ACT treatment protocol. The primary dependent variable was number of obsessive cognitions as recorded by participants within a participant-observer framework. Treatment response was also evaluated using the Children’s Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (CY-BOCS). Results indicated that two of three participants successfully responded to treatment as evidenced by significant reductions in self-observed frequency of obsessive cognitions. Results further indicated large reductions for all participants on the CY-BOCS with a mean score decrease of 47.26%. Implications and future directions were considered. The research yielded results that indicated that ACT may be useful in the treatment of pediatric OCD and that further research is warranted