title: Naturalistic course of obsessive compulsive disorder and comorbid depression. Longitudinal results of a prospective follow-up study of 74 actively treated patients.
abstract: Seventy-four patients who met DSM-III-R criteria for obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) were studied in a prospective follow-up study in order to investigate course and prognosis of OCD with or without comorbid depressive symptomatology. Subjects were examined three times: at admission (baseline), 6 months later (follow-up 1) and 12 months after follow-up 1 (follow-up 2). At admission, 51 (72.9%) OCD patients were assessed as depressive by the Hamilton Depression Scale score. Between admission and follow-up 1, all patients received behavior therapy and a serotonin reuptake inhibitor, between follow-up 1 and follow-up 2 they received different kinds of treatment in order to maximize therapeutic effects. A 25% Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) score reduction from admission to follow-up 2 and in addition, a total Y-BOCS score of below 16 at follow-up 2 was defined as 'good prognosis course'. The results obtained showed that OCD patients who followed a good prognosis course, showed no significant depressive symptomatology at follow-up 2 (p = 0.001). These results imply that patients with a diagnosis of OCD may present depression at admission and/or follow-up 1; however, if OC symptomatology decreases longitudinally, depressive symptoms disappear too. We may assume that OCD is dominant over depression, and it seems that a comorbid depression does not have any major influence on the prognosis of OCD.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: W
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zitterl
authors.forename: U
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Demal
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Aigner
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Lenz
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Urban
authors.forename: H G
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Zapotoczky
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zitterl-Eglseer
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017668:Age of Onset; D000368:Aged; D001521:Behavior Therapy / Q000379:methods; D015897:Comorbidity; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000150:complications* / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D011379:Prognosis; D011446:Prospective Studies; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D017367:Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors / Q000627:therapeutic use; D012917:Social Adjustment
chemical_list: D017367:Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors