Biological Treatments of OCD

• What do SSRIs do?

  • Block reuptake of serotonin in presynaptic neuron
  • Decreases anxiety.
  • Leads to increased levels of serotonin in the synapse
• What does Benzodiazepines (BZ) do?

  - Acts on GABA

  - Slow down neuronal activations across the brain.
• What is GABA?

  The body's natural form of anxiety relief.
• What does BZ Improve?

  It improves the body's anxiolytic system
• Research Support - Soomro

  Soomro 2008 - SSRIs are more effective than placebo's when managing OCD.

  They used a meta-analysis of 17 studies - Increased reliability and generalisability.
• Research Support - Dubovsky

  Dubovsky 1990 - Approximately 30% of BZ users have full benefits. Symptoms as well as compulsion is relieved.

  40% felt relieve of symptoms only.
• Research Support - Mulrow

  Placebo's are 25% less effective than antidepressants.

  Comparing antidepressants to placebo's allows effectiveness to be established.
• Research Support - World Health Organisation

  WHO 2001 - It is a global body so it is credible because it supports that antidepressants are effective in managing OCD.
• Weakness of Biological Treatment of OCD

  The underlying cause of OCD is not targeted/treated .

  • This means that only the symptoms of OCD are being treated.

  Due to this, those with OCD being given the drugs can in turn become addicted to the drugs due to their addictive nature (BZ).  

  So, when a patient stops taking the drugs they may relapse –

  This leads to the questioning of the appropriateness of the drug as it does not just help patients but it also causes other side problems 
• Strength of Biological Treatment 

  Research support  

  There is numerous research that support the biological treatments used for OCD and show that they are effective in treating the symptoms in those with OCD such as reducing anxiety.  
• Strength of Biological Treatment.

  Research for arguing the effectiveness of OCD treatments

  Ashton 1997 found that BZs are too addictive which means that it can only be used for 4 weeks and those who are using BZ will lose the medication that is grounding them and could lead to some side effects such anxiety.  

  Research has also found that long-term use of BZ can cause increased aggression which leads to the diminish of the effectiveness of drug therapies.

  • This is because as soon as someone with OCD starts showing these side effects, they are told to stop taking the medications 
• Weaknesses of Biological Treatment for OCD

  Individual Differences are not taken into account when medications are being given to people. So medications that works for some people may not work for everyone. This is a weakness of the biological approach in treating OCD because they use a nomothetic approach to find treatments for everyone.