Evaluating treatment efficacy for obsessive-compulsive disorder: Caveat practitioner

Abstract

There are potent treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder, but consumers, scientists, and practitioners face challenges in evaluating claims about their efficacy. The present analysis highlights some difficulties with claims about cognitive therapy, exposure-based behavior therapy, pharmacotherapy, the consensus treatment guidelines, and the OCD spectrum hypothesis, which may obscure understanding of treatment efficacy. The goal is to obviate ambiguities that could weaken the conceptual foundations for clinical judgment.