The Impact of Structural Stigma on OCD: Symptom Presentation, Help-Seeking, and Quality of Life
Abstract
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) represents a prominent psychiatric condition whose heterogeneity complicates healthcare professionals’ ability to properly identify and diagnose the disorder when encountering taboo (i.e., socially-constrained) symptoms such as aggressive, sexual, or religious obsessions. Moreover, individuals with OCD may be more prone to self-concealment due to concerns related to stigma. While the detrimental relationship between personal stigma and OC symptoms has been investigated, structural stigma remains unexplored relative to OC symptoms. Based on the evolutionary hypothesis of OCD, living in environments with greater structural stigma may predict more frequent taboo intrusive cognitions. In the current study, a sample of 229 individuals completed an online survey to investigate the impact of structural stigma on taboo OC symptom frequency and severity, other psychopathology, help-seeking attitudes, quality of life, and self-concealment. Structural stigma, as measured by state conservatism and perceived local conservatism, was anticipated to predict elevated psychopathology, less positive help-seeking attitudes, lower quality of life, and elevated self-concealment. Results revealed that perceived local conservatism positively predicted anxiety and self-concealment was positively associated with aggressive, sexual, and religious taboo obsessive concerns. No other relationships emerged as significant in regression analyses and primary and exploratory hypotheses were largely unsupported by study findings. Current findings demonstrate preliminary support for the impact of structural stigma on anxiety via individuals’ perceptions of conservative in their immediate environment. Future research should extend this work by recruiting larger, more diverse samples to further investigate the relationship between structural stigma and taboo OC symptoms, elucidate key relationships revealed by study findings (such as the relationship between perceived local conservatism and anxiety), and explore how different dimensions of political ideology may impact psychopathology.
Subject Area
Clinical psychology|Psychology|Medicine|Mental health
Recommended Citation
Minaya, Charlene, "The Impact of Structural Stigma on OCD: Symptom Presentation, Help-Seeking, and Quality of Life" (2023). ETD Collection for Fordham University. AAI30992161.
https://research.library.fordham.edu/dissertations/AAI30992161
