Think twice: Impulsivity and decision making in obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Background And Aims: Recent studies have challenged the anxiety-avoidance model of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), linking OCD to impulsivity, risky-decision-making and reward-system dysfunction, which can also be found in addiction and might support the conceptualization of OCD as a behavioral addiction. Here, we conducted an exploratory investigation of the behavioral addiction model of OCD by assessing whether OCD patients are more impulsive, have impaired decision-making, and biased probabilistic reasoning, three core dimensions of addiction, in a sample of OCD patients and healthy controls.

Methods: We assessed these dimensions on 38 OCD patients and 39 healthy controls with the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and the Beads Task.