w3 - OCD (and related disorders) and IAD Flashcards
Q: What disorders are included in the OCD and related disorders category?
A: OCD, body dysmorphic disorder, hoarding disorder, excoriation (skin-picking) disorder, and trichotillomania (hair-pulling).
Q: Why are these disorders grouped together in the DSM-5?
A: They involve repetitive behaviours or mental acts, are compulsive, often comorbid, and have genetic links.
Q: What characterises hoarding disorder?
A: Persistent difficulty discarding possessions due to perceived need, resulting in clutter that impairs living spaces and functioning.
Q: What are some specifiers for hoarding disorder?
A: Excessive acquisition, insight levels (good/fair, poor, absent/delusional).
Q: What is trichotillomania?
A: Recurrent hair-pulling resulting in hair loss, with attempts to stop and significant distress.
Q: What is ego-dystonic vs. ego-syntonic behaviour?
A: Ego-dystonic is unwanted or distressing; ego-syntonic aligns with the person’s self-concept.
Q: What is excoriation disorder?
A: Recurrent skin-picking causing lesions, with repeated attempts to stop and significant distress.
Q: What defines obsessions in OCD?
A: Intrusive, unwanted thoughts, urges or images that cause anxiety and are resisted or neutralised.
Q: What defines compulsions in OCD?
A: Repetitive behaviours or mental acts aimed at reducing anxiety or preventing a feared event.
Q: When do obsessions and compulsions become clinically significant?
A: When they are time-consuming (‚â•1 hour/day) or cause significant distress/impairment.
Q: What are the four common OCD domains?
A: Contamination, harm/doubt, symmetry/order, and taboo thoughts.
Q: What are some common compulsions?
A: Washing, checking, repeating, arranging, and mental rituals like counting.
Q: What makes OCD difficult to diagnose?
A: It is heterogeneous with varied symptoms and includes unobservable mental compulsions.
Q: What is the lifetime prevalence of OCD and typical age of onset?
A: 2–3% lifetime prevalence; average onset ~19.5 years; 25% begin by age 14.
Q: What maintains OCD symptoms?
A: Negative reinforcement—compulsions reduce anxiety temporarily, reinforcing the behaviour.
Q: What is thought-action fusion?
A: The belief that thinking something is morally equivalent to doing it or increases its likelihood.
Q: What did Salkovskis add to OCD theory?
A: Inflated personal responsibility and the misinterpretation of intrusive thoughts due to existing schemas.
Q: What are key cognitions in OCD?
A: Inflated responsibility, intolerance of uncertainty, over-importance of thoughts, threat overestimation, control need, perfectionism, magical thinking.
Q: What is the gold-standard treatment for OCD?
A: Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), particularly with exposure and response prevention (ERP).
Q: What is exposure and response prevention (ERP)?
A: A therapy where individuals face fears without performing compulsions, learning they can cope.
Q: What are some cognitive strategies used in CBT for OCD?
A: Psychoeducation, normalising intrusive thoughts, cost-benefit analysis, surveys, pie charts, courtroom role-plays.
Q: How do behavioural experiments help OCD?
A: They challenge thought-action fusion by disproving the power or accuracy of thoughts.
Q: What is cyberchondria?
A: Excessive, compulsive online searching for medical information, often worsening health anxiety.
Q: What is health anxiety?
A: An umbrella term on a spectrum of worry about health or the presence of a disease.
Q: What is illness anxiety disorder (IAD)?
A: Excessive fears of having or acquiring serious diseases, high health anxiety, with minimal or no somatic symptoms.
Q: What is the difference between IAD and somatic symptom disorder (SSD)?
A: IAD involves minimal somatic symptoms; SSD involves one or more distressing, disruptive physical symptoms.
Q: How long must illness preoccupation last for an IAD diagnosis?
A: At least 6 months, though the specific feared illness may change.
Q: What are the specifiers for IAD?
A: Care-seeking, care-avoidant, or fluctuating between the two.
Q: What are some cognitive features of IAD?
A: Attentional biases, catastrophic thoughts, and a tendency to jump to serious health concerns.
Q: What did Holden (2025) find in people with IAD?
A: They generated fewer, more serious explanations for physical symptoms and fewer normalising explanations.
Q: What is the cognitive behavioural model of IAD?
A: IAD is maintained by beliefs about illness likelihood, cost, coping ability, and effectiveness of external help.
Q: What treatments are effective for IAD?
A: CBT, psychoeducation, attention training, behavioural experiments, and exposure therapies.
Q: What is the prevalence of IAD?
A: 1.3–10% in the general population; up to 20% in specialty clinics.
Q: What is the age of onset for IAD?
A: Early to middle adulthood.
Q: What are the individual impacts of IAD?
A: Lower self-rated health, interference with activities, high distress, increased risk of suicide and early mortality.
Q: What are the societal impacts of IAD?
A: Greater absenteeism and higher healthcare utilisation.
Q: What is intergenerational trauma (Aboriginal perspective)?
A: Trauma passed through generations, often through parental experiences of war, colonisation, and systemic oppression.
Q: What is the SBS Cultural Atlas?
A: A resource educating about cultures of migrant groups in Australia to support inclusivity.
Q: Why is assuming full cultural alignment in a client problematic?
A: It overlooks individual identity, reduces empathy, damages rapport, and may lead to mismatched treatment.
Q: What is a yarning circle?
A: An Indigenous Australian practice of equal, respectful discussion aimed at sharing knowledge and deep listening.
