Exploring the role of metacognition in obsessive–compulsive and anxiety symptoms

This study tests three hypotheses, predicting first that metacognition is highly correlated with anxiety and obsessive–compulsive (O–C) symptoms, second that it mediates the relationship between O–C symptoms and anxiety, and third that the meta-cognitive predictors of anxiety are different from the meta-cognitive predictors of O–C symptoms. The sample of the present study was 850 students selected from various universities in Turkey. Significant correlations between metacognition, O–C symptoms and anxiety were observed. Also, mediation analysis confirmed that metacognition fully mediated the relationship between O–C symptoms and anxiety. Consistent with our hypothesis, trait anxiety and O–C symptoms had different meta-cognitive predictors. Although, we expected that meta-cognitive beliefs would vary based on the sub-type of O–C symptoms, meta-cognitive beliefs did not differ according to the O–C symptom subtypes. We discussed results with reference to the literature of meta-cognition, anxiety and O–C symptoms.