Factors contributing to obsessive-compulsive personality disorder traits: a scoping review and empirical study

Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) traits are the most common disordered personality globally, affecting approximately 6.5% of the general population. Despite this, the etiology of OCPD traits remains poorly understood, and this research fragmented. Thus, this mini-thesis-by-publication aimed to: (1) undertake a scoping review to systematically identify and synthesise the documented factors that confer a risk or protective effect in the etiology of OCPD traits; and (2) conduct an empirical study that synthesises factors implicated in the scoping review to examine whether they form possible chain mechanisms that contribute to explaining OCPD traits.

In the scoping review, literature published from 1980 to the present that investigated OCPD traits in human populations was systematically searched in six databases, PsychINFO, Scopus, Embase, CINAHL, MEDLINE, and ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Global. Out of the 3467 studies identified, 86 were included in the review. The results revealed that personality traits, affective factors, cognitive factors, relational factors, biological factors, pre-existing conditions, and neuropsychological factors contributed to the etiology of OCPD traits. This scoping review synthesised a fragmented body of literature and demonstrated the need to investigate multiple etiological factors together to develop a process-level understanding of OCPD trait development.

The empirical study then examined the mediating roles of attachment, intolerance of uncertainty, and metacognition (i.e., factors implicated by the scoping review) in the link between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and OCPD traits. Undergraduate psychology students (N = 291) completed a 30-minute online anonymous self-report survey. Bootstrapped PROCESS macro model 6 results demonstrated that attachment-anxiety and intolerance of uncertainty serially mediated between ACEs and OCPD traits. Moreover, metacognition mediated between child emotional abuse and OCPD traits. These findings suggest that attachment-anxiety and intolerance of uncertainty, and metacognition may be important process-level contributors for understanding OCPD trait development following ACE exposure.