Editorial: eEfficacy of psychological and psychiatric treatments and potential predictors in social anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder

Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) are chronic psychiatric conditions. The former is characterized by an intense fear of social situations in which the person may be scrutinized by others (1). The person fears being negatively evaluated—e.g., being judged as anxious, weak, stupid, boring, or unlikable. Such fear is generally maintained by avoidance behaviors. The latter consists of obsessions—recurrent, persistent thoughts, urges, or images experienced as irrational—and compulsions, repetitive behaviors, or mental acts which an individual feels driven to perform in response to an obsession (2, 3). Serotonergicmedications and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) with behavioral (i.e., exposure therapy for SAD and exposure with response prevention for OCD, respectively), and cognitive strategies (i.e., cognitive restructuring for both the disorders) have been proven to be the first-line treatments across the life span (4–6). However, amongst anxiety-related disorders, SAD and OCD are associated with the lowest remission rates, i.e., 40 and 37%, respectively (7). In addition, dropout rates are relatively common with around 15% of patients with SAD and 9–17% of patients with OCD prematurely leaving the treatment course (8, 9). In the light of these considerations, more research data about the role of predictors of pharmacological and/or psychological treatment response can expand the current knowledge of these disorders and inform treatment decision making in clinical practice according to a precision medicine approach that offers to patients and their caregivers an optimal treatment strategy based upon their characteristics and healthcare needs (10–12). The predictors of pharmacological and/or psychological treatment response amongst patients with SAD and OCD can include patient-, family-, and treatment-level features which can predict or even moderate the outcome of patients or increase their readiness (i.e., willingness) to start a treatment. The Research Topic entitled as “Efficacy of Psychological and Psychiatric Treatments and Potential Predictors in Social Anxiety Disorder and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder” and edited by Rosa-Alcázar et al. aims to collect scientific papers focused on this clinical and research approach.