title: Insight in obsessive-compulsive disorder: a comparative study of insight measures in an Israeli clinical sample.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Attempts to identify the characteristics of OCD patients with poor insight have not produced a coherent picture. This may be related to the wide variety of the available insight assessment tools. The study aimed to compare five principal measure for assessing insight in OCD and to investigate the relationships between insight and central demographic and clinical variables.
  
  
  METHODS
  Sixty outpatients diagnosed with OCD (36 men, 24 women) were assessed with the following insight measures: DSM-IV insight criterion, Over-Valued Ideas Scale (OVIS), Item 11 of the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), Brown Assessment of Beliefs Scale (BABS) and Beck Cognitive Insight Scale (BCIS).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Correlation coefficients indicated high correspondence between all insight measures with the exception of the BCIS. At the same time, the relations of the various insight measures with demographic and clinical variables were distinctive and in some cases measure-specific. The most robust correlation was between insight and current medical treatment, so that medicated participants showed higher insight levels on most insight measures compared to non-medicated participants. Some insight measures were correlated with co-morbidity, onset age and gender. Insight levels did not correlate with OCD symptom severity.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Limitations of this study include its cross-sectional design, modest sample size and an incomplete representation of the available insight measures.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The diversity of measures used in previous studies cannot account for the inconsistent findings on the role of insight in OCD.
authors: Department of Psychology, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel.
authors: Ya'ara
authors: Y
authors: Shimshoni
authors: Orna
authors: O
authors: Reuven
authors: Reuven
authors: R
authors: Dar
authors: Haggai
authors: H
authors: Hermesh
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017668:Age of Onset; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology; D003071:Cognition; D003863:Depression / Q000150:complications / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007557:Israel; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012737:Sex Factors