Male Sex, Comorbid Psychiatric Conditions, Romantic Status Linked to Faster Progression to OCD

It takes an average of seven years for people who have some, but not all, symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (subthreshold OCD) to develop full-blown OCD, according to astudyin theJournal of Affective Disorders. The study also suggests that certain characteristics, such as male sex, the presence of other psychiatric conditions, and romantic status, may be associated with a faster transition from subthreshold OCD to OCD.Emma M. Thompson, a Ph.D. candidate at Monash University in Australia, and colleagues examined data from 954 patients who were enrolled in treatment centers in the Brazilian Research Consortium on Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders between 2003 and 2009. The average age of the patients was 35 years; 358 were married, 520 were single, and 62 were divorced. Most were not working at the time of the assessment, and about half had a family history of OCD.Every three years, consortium researchers interviewed and evaluated the patients using standardized assessment tools such as the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale and the Structured Clinical Interview forDSM-IV, among others. They found that males, patients with agoraphobia (fear of open or crowded places) without panic disorder, and patients with bipolar II disorder transitioned from subthreshold OCD to OCD in five years on average, compared with the overall average of seven years. Other characteristics associated with faster transition included greater severity of sexual/religious symptoms, lower s...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: Emma Thompson Journal of Affective Disorders Monash University obsessive-compulsive disorder subthreshold OCD Source Type: research