Coping strategies used by the relatives of people with obsessive–compulsive disorder

Abstract

Implications for clinical practice to support these relatives are discussed.

Emotional burden in caregivers of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder

“…Family informal caregivers should not only be considered partners in the patient's treatment process [19,20] and in psychiatric research, [8] but deserve special attention from health care providers for their own psychological morbidity and suffering.…”

Obsessive-compulsive disorder in children and adolescents: Parental understanding, accommodation, coping and distress

“…Allsopp and Verduyn (1990) suggested that some families were split in their responses; one parent may be accommodating whereas the other antagonistic, and some parents may be oscillating in their responses. The latter has been associated with family conflict, which can be stressful for the person with OCD (Van Noppen, Steketee, & Pato, 1997;Stengler-Wenzke, Trosbach, Dietrich & Angermeyer, 2004). Some writers, most notably Guidano and Liotti (1983), theorize that ambivalent parenting might be a risk factor for the development and maintenance of obsessional states.…”

Quality of Life in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: The Different Impact of Obsessions and Compulsions

“…It is well-known that many of the OCD patients are completely dependent on their family members. Clinical observations suggest that family members of OCD patients are often involved in patients' rituals: it seems to be a characteristic of patients with OCD to include their relatives in the process of coping with symptoms of the ill- ness [44] . Relatives often become part of the rituals and, even in the patients' absence, take over behavioral rules determined by the compulsions.…”