Responsibility and impulsivity and their interaction in relation to obsessive-compulsive symptoms

In the present study, the role of responsibility and impulsivity and their interaction in obsessive-compulsive symptoms was investigated. The obsessive-compulsive inventory-revised (OCI-R), an attention deficit and hyperactivity/impulsivity self-report scale (AD/HD-SR), the responsibility attitudes scale (RAS), Eysenck's impulsiveness/venturesomeness/empathy questionnaire (IVE), the community epidemiological survey-depression (CES-D) and the Penn State worry questionnaire (PSWQ) were administered to a sample of 405 Icelandic university students. Responsibility attitudes (RAS) and impulsivity measures were significantly related to scores on the OCI-R total scale, even when depression had been taken into consideration. The interaction between responsibility and hyperactivity/impulsivity added to the prediction of OCI-R scores over and above simple effects.