FREQUENCY OF OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

Abstract

Study Design: To find the frequency of obsessive-compulsive disorder amongst patients presenting in the Psychiatry OPD of a tertiary care hospital. Methodology: This cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted at Department of Psychiatry, King Edward Medical University, Mayo Hospital, Lahore from February 1, 2024, to July 31, 2024. One hundred and twenty-four patients presenting to the Psychiatry outpatient department and meeting the eligibility criteria were enrolled. Consecutive sampling technique was employed to select the sample using non-probability sampling. Participants within the age group of 13 to 70 years were included in the study irrespective of their sex. Participants were assessed for obsessive-compulsive disorder according to the predefined DSM-5-based operational definition. The Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale was subsequently administered by an experienced clinician to assess symptom severity, with a score of ≥8 considered clinically significant. Results: Clinically significant obsessive-compulsive symptoms were defined according to the predefined Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale cut-off score of ≥ 8is the cut-off score for obsessive-compulsive disorder diagnosis, 35 out of 124 participants (28.2%) had obsessive-compulsive disorder. The extent of severity for those who had the disorder was distributed as follows: 8 out of 124 participants (6.5%) were classified as having mild, 13 (10.4%) moderate, 5 (4.0%) severe, and 9 (7.3%) extreme cases, whereas the rest of the participants (89 out of 124; 71.8%) had no clinical obsessive-compulsive disorder. No significant difference was found between the frequency of obsessive-compulsive disorder and gender, education, socioeconomic status, and duration of symptoms. However, marital status was an exception in which the rate of obsessive-compulsive disorder was more than twice as high in the unmarried group than in the married group (p=0.015). Conclusion: The frequency of obsessive-compulsive disorder was slightly more than one-fourth of the total number of patients seen in the psychiatry outpatient unit. Marital status is the only socio-demographic variable that has been significantly related to obsessive-compulsive disorder, wherein most of the affected individuals were not married.