The arrIBA project (Alternative treatment to Reduce chronicity in OCD: Research Into Brain response and Adequacy of treatment) studies effectiveness and neurobiological working mechanism of an innovative psychotherapy for people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), the Inference Based Cognitive Behavior Therapy (I-CBT) and is conducted as a joint project between the department of psychiatry at Amsterdam UMC/VUmc and GGZ Centraal.
I-CBT is a psychotherapy for people with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that aims at learning patients to observe thought patterns and reorient themselves from imagination to reality. Exposure with response prevention (ERP) is not part of it. Since some people with OCD find ERP so distressing that they refuse treatment or experience it as a heavy burden, I-CBT could be a welcome addition to the treatment options. Early clinical trials have demonstrated that I-CBT can be an effective treatment for OCD. However, whether it is non-inferior to standard Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) and what are the neurobiological working mechanisms was still unknown.
The aim of the arrIBA study was to investigate effectiveness, neurobiological working mechanism and tolerability of I-CBT compared to CBT in multicentre RCT. 197 people with OCD were (1:1) randomly assigned to 20 sessions of I-CBT or CBT. 86 of them, and 43 healthy controls also underwent (task based) fMRI . Health care sites participating in this project are GGzCentraal, GGZIngeest, Pro Persona, Mondriaan Maastricht, GGZ Drenthe, PsyQ (Amsterdam en Groningen). Ultimately, this project might improve the treatability of OCD.