Intrusive thoughts are unwanted, sudden thoughts that can cause significant discomfort and disrupt daily functioning. While they are closely associated with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), research on intrusive thoughts extends beyond the study of OCD. In recent years, the presence of intrusive thoughts has been suggested in literature for various other disorders and conditions as well as being common in non-clinical samples. Specifically, these thoughts can manifest in areas such as eating, body and illness.


This study aims to explore the interrelated symptoms among various intrusive thought types and identify potential intervention strategies targeting the most central and bridge symptoms within these symptom networks. The investigation concentrates on four distinct intrusive thought subtypes linked to OCD: obsessions, body-related intrusions (BRI), eating-related intrusions (ERI), and illness-related intrusions (IRI). Questionnaire of Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts was administered to 355 college students. Regularized Gaussian Graphical Models were modelled using the LASSO regularization method to estimate the symptom networks. To ensure the robustness of the findings, bootstrap methods were used to assess both network accuracy and stability. The results showed that centrality metrics except for betweenness centrality had acceptable stability.

The analysis of the frequency network indicated that ERI were the most central. In the discomfort network, prominent associations emerged among specific symptoms across all dimensions. Bridge analyses demonstrated that symptoms from BRI, IRI and obsessions functioned as the key "bridges" linking different symptom clusters within the frequency network. Within the discomfort network, ERI and BRI, along with obsessions, were identified as the most influential bridge symptoms, particularly facilitating connections across distinct symptom dimensions.


These findings underscore the clinical relevance of mapping intrusive thought networks, highlighting that targeting high-centrality and bridge symptoms may enhance intervention effectiveness. In applied settings, such insights can inform symptom-focused treatment planning and strategy development research.