title: Symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder in a sample of Iranian patients.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Characteristic features of the obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) occur with remarkable consistency in different cultural settings. The content of symptoms, however, seems to vary across cultures.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To examine the content of symptoms in a sample of OCD patients from Iran.
  
  
  METHODS
  In a sample of 135 patients recruited from three treatment settings the prevalence of symptoms with different contents were ranked and compared across genders.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Doubts and indecisiveness were the most common obsessions and washing the most common compulsion for the whole sample. Fears of impurity and contamination, obsessive thoughts about self-impurity and washing compulsions were more common in women, whereas blasphemous thoughts and orderliness compulsions were more common in men.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  With minor differences, the pattern of symptoms with various contents in this sample was similar to that in Western settings.
authors: Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Iran. hghasemzadeh@yahoo.com
authors: Habibollah
authors: H
authors: Ghassemzadeh
authors: Ramin
authors: R
authors: Mojtabai
authors: Akram
authors: A
authors: Khamseh
authors: Nargess
authors: N
authors: Ebrahimkhani
authors: Arab-Ali
authors: AA
authors: Issazadegan
authors: Zahra
authors: Z
authors: Saif-Nobakht
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D003469:Culture; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000208:ethnology / Q000503:physiopathology; D005260:Female; D006761:Hospitals; D006801:Humans; D007492:Iran; D008297:Male; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000208:ethnology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D010555:Personality Inventory; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014495:Universities