The relationship between moral judgment ability, parenting style, and perfectionism in obsessive–compulsive disorder patients: A mediating analysis

Abstract

Introduction: Guilt is an important part of obsessive–compulsive disorder. The abnormal moral cognition of obsessive–compulsive disorder patients may be closely related to their high level of guilt. The purpose of this study was to explore the development level of moral judgment in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder and the role of parenting style and perfectionism in moral judgment development. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted in the clinical psychology department of a Class III hospital in Beijing. The patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder were recruited, and the healthy control subjects were recruited at the same time. Questionnaires were used to collect data, including the Yale-Brown Compulsion Scale, the Moral Judgment Test, the Parenting Style Evaluation Scale, and the Frost Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale. Result: A total of 231 patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder and 246 healthy controls were included. The results showed that, first, the obsessive–compulsive group scored significantly lower on moral judgment than the healthy control group. Second, the tendency of non-adaptive perfectionism was significantly higher in the obsessive–compulsive group than in the healthy control group. Third, parents’ excessive control, denial, punishment, and other parenting styles and non-adaptive perfectionism are higher than those of healthy people. Fourthly, the mother of obsessive–compulsive disorder patients is overly interference and protective. Rejection, denial, punishment, harshness, and father’s rejection and denial play a partial mediating role in moral judgment ability through the degree of non-adaptive perfectionism. Conclusion: The development level of moral judgment ability of patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder was significantly lower than that of the normal group, and the level of non-adaptive perfectionism was significantly higher than that of the normal group. Parents of obsessive–compulsive patients use more high-pressure control education. Parenting style partially affects the moral judgment of obsessive–compulsive patients through the degree of non-adaptive perfectionism.