Obsessive-compulsive characteristics: from symptoms to syndrome.
OBJECTIVE
To assess the distribution and severity of obsessions and compulsions in a nonclinical adolescent population.


METHODS
During preinduction military screening, 861 sixteen-year-old Israelis completed a questionnaire regarding the lifetime presence of eight obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms and three severity measures. The presence or absence of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) or subclinical OCD was ascertained by an independent interview.


RESULTS
Although only 8.0% and 6.3% of respondents reported disturbing and intrusive thoughts, respectively, 27% to 72% of subjects endorsed the six remaining OCD symptoms. Twenty percent of subjects regarded the symptoms they endorsed as senseless and 3.5% found them disturbing; 8% reported spending more than an hour daily on symptoms. OCD and subclinical OCD cases differed significantly from non-OCD cases, but not from each other, in distress and mean number of symptoms. Although the distribution of nine of the items differed for noncases, compared with OCD and subclinical OCD cases, the distributions for all items overlapped markedly across the three groups.


CONCLUSIONS
OC phenomena appear to be on a continuum with few symptoms and minimal severity at one end and many symptoms and severe impairment on the other. Defining optimal cutoff points for distinguishing between psychiatric disorder and OC phenomena that are common in the general population remains an open question.
Apter
A
A
Geha Psychiatric Hospital, Sackler School of Medicine, University of Tel Aviv.
Fallon
T J
TJ
King
R A
RA
Ratzoni
G
G
Zohar
A H
AH
Binder
M
M
Weizman
A
A
Leckman
J F
JF
Pauls
D L
DL
Kron
S
S
Cohen
D J
DJ
D000293:Adolescent; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel / Q000453:epidemiology; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D008889:Military Personnel / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000145:classification / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results