OCD and Trauma-Related Disorders in the Pandemic: Bio-Psychosocial Vulnerability Factors and Intervention Strategies

Dear Colleagues,

The COVID-19 pandemic is a severe stressful life event that can trigger psychopathological symptoms in clinical populations with psychiatric disorders, but also in individuals or in those with a pre-existing psychiatric vulnerability (e.g., people with lifetime past diagnoses, or relatives of psychiatric patients). This is particularly relevant to the development, exacerbation, or relapse of obsessive–compulsive symptoms such as pathological contamination fears in individuals with obsessive–compulsive disorders (OCD), or trauma-related conditions such as adjustment disorders and post-traumatic stress disorders (PTSD). Several stress factors related to the pandemic can put these people at risk of high levels of stress, impairment, and poor quality of life: family, economic, work-related issues (e.g., having lost one’s job or a loved one, having been infected), the interruption of social activities, movement restrictions, strict hygiene habits, and the increased personal responsibility for contagion.

To date, the effects of the pandemic on people with OCD or trauma-related disorders have not been sufficiently examined in the literature. The impact of the pandemic on the onset of obsessive–compulsive or traumatic symptoms in the community, but also the development of intervention strategies for such conditions, represent other research areas that deserve more scientific attention. Further studies focusing on these aspects may be of interest to a broad audience of stakeholders, including mental health practitioners and researchers, policymakers, social workers, patients, and their families.

The present Special Issue of Brain Sciences aims to collect international papers (research articles, narrative reviews, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, case studies) focused on bio-psychosocial vulnerability factors and/or intervention strategies for OCD and trauma-related conditions in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. This Special Issue will include international papers concerning the following aspects:

• Biological or psychosocial vulnerability or protective factors for the onset, exacerbation, or relapse of OCD or trauma-related symptoms during the pandemic in psychiatric populations, in the general population, in undergraduates, or in specific community populations (e.g., youth, older people, healthcare professionals).
• Changes in symptoms during the pandemic (changes in obsessions and compulsions, both in terms of their severity and in the onset of new ones; changes in the severity of symptoms of people with previous traumas and onset of new ones associated with the pandemic; changes in other clinical symptoms, both in the clinical population and in the community in anxiety, depression, sleep, and other key variables).
• Quality of life, family/couple or academic/work functioning of patients with OCD or trauma-related symptoms (or their relatives) during the pandemic.
• Biological or psychosocial treatment or early intervention strategies, predictors or moderators of outcomes, mechanisms of change of OCD or trauma-related symptoms during the pandemic.
• Cross-cultural comparisons on OCD or trauma-related conditions during the pandemic.

Dr. Andrea Pozza
Dr. Andrea Fagiolini
Dr. Fabio Ferretti
Prof. Dr. Ana Isabel Rosa Alcázar
Dr. Małgorzata Dragan
Dr. Alessandro Cuomo
Guest Editors

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• obsessive–compulsive disorder
• obsessions
• rituals
• trauma
• post-traumatic stress disorder
• pandemic
• COVID-19
• stress
• anxiety
• adjustment disorders