Background: People with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have faced unique challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research from the first two months of the pandemic suggests that a small proportion of people with OCD experienced worsening in their OCD symptoms since the pandemic began, whereas the rest experienced either no change or an improvement in their symptoms. However, as society-level factors relating to the pandemic have evolved, the effects of the pandemic on people with OCD have likely changed as well, in complex and population-specific ways. Therefore, this study contributes to a growing body of knowledge on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people and demonstrates how differences across studies might emerge when studying specific populations at specific timepoints. Objective: This study aimed to assess how members of online OCD support communities felt the COVID-19 pandemic had affected their OCD symptoms, around 3 months after the pandemic began. Methods: We recruited participants from online OCD support communities for our brief survey. Participants indicated how much they felt their OCD symptoms had changed since the pandemic began and how much they felt that having OCD was making it harder to deal with the pandemic. Results: We collected survey data from June through August 2020 and received a total of 196 responses, some of which were partial responses. Among the nonmissing data, 65.9% (108/164) of the participants were from the United States and 90.5% (152/168) had been subjected to a stay-at-home order. In all, 92.9% (182/196) of the participants said they experienced worsening of their OCD symptoms since the pandemic began, although the extent to which their symptoms worsened differed across dimensions of OCD; notably, symmetry and completeness symptoms were less likely to have worsened than others. Moreover, 95.5% (171/179) of the participants felt that having OCD made it difficult to deal with the pandemic. Conclusions: Our study of online OCD support community members found a much higher rate of OCD symptom worsening than did other studies on people with OCD conducted during the current COVID-19 pandemic. Factors such as quarantine length, location, overlapping society-level challenges, and differing measurement and sampling choices may help to explain this difference across studies.

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COVID-19大流行对在线强迫症支持社区成员的影响：调查研究

背景：强迫症（OCD）患者在COVID-19大流行期间面临独特的挑战。大流行前两个月的研究表明，自大流行开始以来，一小部分强迫症患者的强迫症症状有所恶化，而其他人则没有变化或症状有所改善。但是，随着与大流行有关的社会层面因素的发展，大流行对强迫症患者的影响也可能以复杂且针对特定人群的方式发生了变化。因此，这项研究有助于人们了解COVID-19大流行对人类的影响，并证明了在特定时间点研究特定人群时跨研究的差异会如何出现。客观的：这项研究旨在评估大流行期开始后约3个月，在线OCD支持社区的成员如何感觉到COVID-19大流行影响了其OCD症状。方法：我们从在线OCD支持社区中招募了参与者，以进行简短调查。与会者指出，自大流行开始以来，他们感到强迫症的症状已经改变了多少，以及他们感到拥有强迫症的难度越来越大。结果：我们收集了从2020年6月到2020年8月的调查数据，共收到196份答复，其中一些是部分答复。在所有数据中，有65.9％（108/164）来自美国，有90.5％（152/168）来自美国。共有92.9％（182/196）的参与者表示，自大流行开始以来，他们经历了强迫症症状的恶化，尽管其症状恶化的程度因强迫症的不同而有所不同。值得注意的是，对称性和完整性症状比其他症状恶化的可能性较小。此外，有95.5％（171/179）的参与者认为患有强迫症会难以应对这种大流行。结论：我们对在线OCD支持社区成员的研究发现，在当前COVID-19大流行期间，对OCD症状恶化的发生率比对OCD患者的其他研究要高得多。隔离长度，位置，社会层面的重叠挑战以及不同的测量和抽样选择等因素可能有助于解释研究之间的这种差异。