Evidence of Impaired Event-Based Prospective Memory in Clinical Obsessive–Compulsive Checking

Abstract

Based on findings from subclinical OCD checking samples (Cuttler & Graf, 2007; 2008), Cuttler and Graf (2009) suggested that checking may develop to compensate for prospective memory failures. The present study provides the first evidence of prospective memory problems in a clinical sample of OCD checkers (n = 26) compared to a group of healthy controls (n = 26). Consistent with earlier work with subclinical samples, the OCD checkers performed more poorly on an event-based, but not a time-based, prospective memory task. However, the OCD checkers did not report more subjective prospective memory failures than controls and their confidence in prospective memory accuracy was higher than that of controls. An explanation of the inconsistent findings with regard to metamemory in clinical and subclinical OCD checking is provided. Further research assessing both subjective memory performance and the strategies understood to support memory is needed to clarify the contribution of prospective memory to OCD checking.

The nature of prospective memory deficit in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder

“…Regarding the subjective report of PM in everyday life, OCD patients did not make more complaints in PM failures compared to healthy controls Harris et al, 2010). This is in contrast to the elevated PM complaints in subclinical populations (Cuttler and Graf, 2007;.…”

“…This finding is consistent with our hypothesis and previous studies, as time-based PM is usually the most severely impaired among the three types of PM (Henry et al, 2004;Wang et al, 2009). In the only study that investigated time-based PM in OCD patients with checking as the main symptom, Harris et al (2010) found no impairment in time-based PM.…”

“…Using a battery of tests capturing various types of memory, Jelinek et al (2006) found no PM deficit in a clinical OCD sample. In a group of pure compulsive checkers, Harris et al (2010) found PM deficits in activity-based but not time-based PM. However, the two PM tasks differed in personal relevance and so whether OCD patients have cue-specific PM deficits remains unclear.…”

“…This is in contrast to the elevated PM complaints in subclinical populations (Cuttler and Graf, 2007;. Harris et al (2010) suggested that PM failures may arouse concerns in individuals with subclinical OCD, who may gradually develop checking behaviours to cope. When these checking behaviours become habitual and the individual develops clinical OCD, the increased confidence in compensating for PM deficits may paradoxically result in fewer PM complaints in OCD patients.…”

“…However, neurocognitive functions known to be associated with PM such as retrospective memory and executive functions have been found to be impaired in OCD patients (Abramovitch et al, 2013), suggesting the likelihood of PM deficit in these patients. To date, only four studies have examined PM in OCD patients (Jelinek et al, 2006;Moritz et al, 2006;Harris et al, 2010;Racsmany et al, 2011). The diverse methods and inconsistent results of these studies, however, prevent a clear conclusion about the nature and extent of PM deficits in OCD patients.…”