Understanding parental experiences of early obsessive-compulsive signs emerging at 4-10 years

About the study

My study aims to:

- Understand the early signs obsessive-compulsive signs which young
children show.
- Understand how parents support their child when they show these
early signs.
- Understand the support which families of affected young children
need during this difficult time.

What will it involve?

Taking part will involve one parent being interviewed by the main researcher (James) at a time to suit them. The interview can take place in person, by video call, or by phone, whichever is most
convenient to you, and will usually take about 45-60 minutes.

Before the interview begins, you will complete a questionnaire which asks some questions about your family such as your child’s age. The researcher will go through this questionnaire with you.

In the interview, we are interested in finding out about your experiences of your son’s/daughter’s recurring thoughts and behaviours in early childhood (4-10 years). We are also interested in how you manage/d these and how (if at all) they have changed over time. We will also ask if this has affected other family members, and any avenues you have taken or took to find information or support.

There are also 2 more questionnaires, which you can either complete online or a posted paper version taking about 30-45 minutes in total, or we can go through together. These questionnaires help us understand more about your child’s mental health and behaviour. One is about current obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and the other one, autistic tendencies, just because there is sometimes (but also often not) an overlap.

If you are interested in taking part in this study, please fill out the 'consent to contact' form below, which allows participants to leave their contact details for the researcher to get in touch about the study:

https://www.qualtrics.manchester.ac.uk/jfe/form/SV_411pt01ft8jdVnE