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Imams’ Experience With and Response to Mosque-Goers With OCD Scrupulosity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2019

Mairwen K. Jones ,
Lynne M. Harris  and
Rajezi Sepideh Esfahani
Mairwen K. Jones*
Affiliation:
Discipline of Behavioural and Social Sciences in Health, Faculty of Health Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia
Lynne M. Harris
Affiliation:
Discipline of Psychological Sciences, Australian College of Applied Psychology, Australia
Rajezi Sepideh Esfahani
Affiliation:
Clinical Psychology Department, University of Welfare and Rehabilitation Sciences, Tehran, Iran
*
*Corresponding author: Mairwen Jones, Faculty of Health Sciences, Cumberland Campus, East Street, Lidcombe, NSW 2141, University of Sydney, Australia. Email: mairwen.jones@sydney.edu.au
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Abstract

The experience of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms that have a religious theme is common. Recent research has found that religious participants with religious OCD symptoms frequently turn to religious advisors, such as imams or clergy, for help to understand and alleviate their symptoms. As such, the advice provided by imams or clergy may have an important impact on the response of the person seeking help. This study examined the attitudes, beliefs and experiences of 64 Muslim imams with mosque-goers who had religious OCD symptoms, particularly scrupulosity. This study also examined imams’ familiarity with first-line psychological treatments for OCD such as Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP). Sunni imams from Australia and Shia imams from Iran completed an online survey based on the research of Deacon, Vincent, and Zhang (2012), which was conducted with Christian clergy in the United States. Results showed that the majority of imams were unfamiliar with scrupulosity as a possible symptom of a mental health problem, such as OCD, and with ERP as a recognised treatment for OCD. While 37% of participants reported having been approached by mosque-goers for help with scrupulosity, only 9% referred mosque-goers to mental health professionals, and only one imam reported having referred a mosque-goer for ERP. Sunni imams located in Australia were more likely to provide advice inconsistent with the ERP approach and were also significantly less likely than Shia imams located in Iran to recommend referral to a mental health professional who was not affiliated with their own religious denomination. Finally, Sunni imams had significantly higher scores than Shia imams on Thought Action Fusion (TAF) subscales. Results of multiple regression analysis revealed that TAF explained a considerable amount of the variance related to ERP-inconsistent advice. Research implications and limitations are discussed.

Keywords

obsessive compulsive disorderreligionscrupulositythought action fusionimam
Type
Standard Paper
Information
Behaviour Change , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , April 2019 , pp. 29 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2019 

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