The Relationship Between Intolerance of Uncertainty and Psychological Resilience with Quality of Life in Patients with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Comparative Study.
Level 4 - case-series / case-control
Cross-sectional case-control study
PubMed 41457885 · doi:10.5080/u27660
What was done
A cross-sectional comparative study evaluated 144 participants: 72 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and 72 healthy controls matched for age, gender, and socioeconomic status. Participants completed the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS), the Resilience Scale for Adults (RSA), the Short-Form 36 (SF-36), the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HARS), the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HDRS), and the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS).
What was found
The OCD group exhibited significantly higher intolerance of uncertainty scores and lower quality of life scores across all SF-36 domains compared to healthy controls. Within the OCD cohort, all SF-36 subscales correlated negatively with IUS scores (strongest for vitality: r = -0.676, p < 0.001) and positively with RSA resilience scores (strongest for vitality: r = 0.619, p < 0.001). Regression analyses indicated that psychological resilience, illness duration, and Y-BOCS symptom severity significantly predicted quality of life, explaining 15.9% to 55.3% of the variance in key mental health-related domains.
Why it matters
This study demonstrates that intolerance of uncertainty and reduced psychological resilience relate strongly to quality of life deficits in OCD, suggesting psychological resilience may represent an important clinical target alongside symptom reduction.
Limits
The cross-sectional design cannot establish causality between intolerance of uncertainty, resilience, and quality of life. The sample size was modest (72 OCD patients), and the abstract does not report medication status, concurrent psychotherapy, or specific comorbid psychiatric disorders.