Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) with religious contents is more prevalent among religious populations. The aim of this study was to evaluate efficacy of religious cognitive-behavioral therapy (RCBT) on OCD with religious content and co-morbidities.

This is a randomized controlled clinical trial. Our intervention consists of 10 weekly RCBT 90 minutes sessions supervised by both clergyman and psychiatrist.

Randomly 50 patients with 17 and more Yale Brown scores and religious content obsessive symptoms were selected and divided into two intervention and control groups. Yale Brown, SCL-90, and Hamilton depression questionnaires were used in this study. Data were analyzed by ANOVA/ANCOVA repeated measure tests using SPSS ver. 13.

Mean age of patients was 32.9 ± 8.86 years. 94% (n = 47) were female. Yale Brown scores in three stages (before intervention, after fifth and tenth session) in both groups decreased specially in intervention group but showed no significant difference (p = 0.294). However there were significant difference between mean scores of two groups (p = 0.047). Comparison of obsession subscale and compulsion subscale of Yale Brown scale showed decrease in three stages of the study. Decreasing trend in obsession subscale is not statistically significant (f (2, 42) = 0.94, p-value = 0.398), but decreasing trend in compulsive subscale is statistically significant (f(2,43) = 36.008, p value < 0.001).

In obsessive compulsive disorder with religious contents, religious CBT not only could significantly increase clinical responses, especially in compulsive behavior but also improve co-morbid symptoms such as depression as well as global severity index and decrease symptoms.