GAINESVILLE, Fla., Jun 19, 2009 (UPI via COMTEX) -- For a child with
obsessive-compulsive disorder, soothing anxiety or helping with OCD behaviors
could lead to more severe symptoms, U.S. researchers said.
University of Florida researchers said often parents of children with OCD will
help their children complete rituals related to their obsessions and
compulsions, or reassuring a child that his or her hands are clean, or buying
objects that make the child feel safe.
"Parents do that because that is what a parent whose child doesn't have OCD
would do," lead author Lisa Merlo, assistant professor of psychiatry, said in a
statement.
"If your child is upset, you try to comfort them. For patients with OCD, if they
get an accommodation, that reinforces the OCD to them. It's validating the OCD
in the kid's mind, and that's what you don't want to do."
The study included 49 children ages 6-18 with OCD and their families. The
researchers gauged how severe each child's condition was and compared it to how
many accommodating behaviors parents reported.
The, study, published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology,
found that the more severe the child's OCD, the more the child's family seemed
to accommodate OCD behaviors.
"You would think if parents are helping, the kids would be less impaired," Merlo
said. "But what we are seeing is that it snowballs and makes it worse and
worse."
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