NCT07158801

Project EMPOWER-OCD

A Web-based Single Session Intervention to Reduce Caregiver Distress and Accommodation in Socioeconomically Diverse Caregivers of OCD Patients

• Status: Not Yet Recruiting
• Phase: Phase 1
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 110 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Boston University Charles River Campus · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This research study aims to adapt and evaluate the acceptability and effectiveness of Project EMPOWER-OCD for socioeconomically diverse caregivers of patients with OCD. Designed to reduce obstacles (e.g. months long time commitment, high cost, transportation) to treatment that caregivers may be particularly prone to, project EMPOWER-OCD will provide targeted intervention of accommodation - a well-established, potentially modifiable risk factor for child anxiety, OCD, and its related disorders - in a single, self-guided session via an online format.

Detailed description

The need for accessible, effective interventions for child OCD that meet the needs of financially insecure families can be addressed via mechanism-targeted single session interventions (SSIs). Unlike the dominant models of brick-and-mortar clinic based, multi-week psychotherapy, SSIs involve intentional, single visit or interaction with a clinic, provider, or self-guided program. To date, SSIs have prevented and reduced child psychopathology across numerous trials . Given that the modal number of therapy sessions completed across all care settings is one, SSIs leverage these one-time interactions to complement -rather than replace -the existing mental health care models to help address long-standing, multi-level barriers to care (e.g., lack of providers, long waitlists, and family's ability to attend multi-sessions). In SSI development, it is critical to identify target mechanisms to optimize the likelihood of spurring clinical change in a short period of time. One way caregivers get further entangled in the webs of OCD is accommodation, which refers to changes in caregiving behaviors or routines that facilitate or maintain their child's avoidance or anxiety. Examples include modifying family routines (i.e. adjusting work schedules to ensure the child has enough time to complete rituals) or directly participating in a patient's avoidance strategies (i.e. repeatedly washing objects on behalf of a patient who has contamination fears). Accommodation reduces the patient's short-term distress but inadvertently maintains their long-term avoidance. High levels of family accommodation have consistently predicted the maintenance and severity of OCD problems. Moreover, as accommodation involves the act of doing more to alleviate the patient's distress in the short term, reducing this common caregiving behavior gives caregivers the permission to do less - not only removing a common maintenance factor of OCD, but also decreasing caregiver burden and stress, ultimately improving family well-being. Project EMPOWER is a self-administered SSI that has been evaluated in previous trials to successfully reduce accommodation in caregivers of anxious children. This research study aims to adapt and evaluate the acceptability and effectiveness of Project EMPOWER-OCD for socioeconomically diverse caregivers of patients with OCD. Designed to reduce obstacles (e.g. months long time commitment, high cost, transportation) to treatment that caregivers may be particularly prone to, project EMPOWER-OCD will provide targeted intervention of accommodation - a well-established, potentially modifiable risk factor for child anxiety, OCD, and its related disorders - in a single, self-guided session via an online format. SSIs have been shown to produce benefits across a range of mental health conditions and access to the intervention may provide potential benefits to their emotional health and family functioning. There are no known risks to participate in this study

Conditions

• Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Project EMPOWER-OCD	Project EMPOWER-OCD is a web-based intervention for caregivers that takes about 20-25 minutes to complete that reduces accommodation. The program is drawing from an empirically supported intervention, Project EMPOWER, and will be adapted for the OCD population pending stakeholder input during phase 1 and include 5 elements: (1) an introduction to the program's rationale; (2) psychoeducation around OCD-driven avoidance, along with how caregiver accommodation can inadvertently maintain these avoidance patterns; (3) information on how caregivers can better identify patterns of avoidance, validate, and encourage approach behaviors instead; (4) creation of an "action plan" to promote approach behavior and reducing avoidance; (5) a vignette exercise in which caregivers read about another case and provide possible solutions based on what they learned. Resources for finding mental health treatment for OCD are presented at the end.
BEHAVIORAL	Project CARE	To evaluate the effects of Project EMPOWER-OCD, we will compare it to an active psychoeducation-based SSI that provides general information on caregiving and caregiver mental health. The intervention includes 5 elements that mirror Project EMPOWER: (1) introduction to the rationale for the program; (2) introduce the concept of caregiving across relationships and situations; (3) present broad information on typical development processes; (4) helping caregivers identify their own role and reflect on how caregiving looks like in their life (5) vignette exercise where caregivers identify caregiving roles, prompting reflection on roles. This active comparator intentionally does not include any psychoeducational components explicitly designed to reduce accommodation of anxiety, OCD, and its related disorders.

Timeline

• Start date: 2025-10-01
• Primary completion: 2026-08-31
• Completion: 2027-08-31
• First posted: 2025-09-08
• Last updated: 2025-09-11

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States