title: Does insight have specific correlation with symptom dimensions in OCD?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To study relationship between insight and clinical characteristics in subjects with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
  
  
  METHODS
  Sample included 545 consecutive patients with a primary diagnosis of DSM-IV OCD who consulted a specialty OCD Clinic at a tertiary psychiatric hospital in India between January 2004 and December 2009. They had been evaluated with the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) symptom checklist, severity rating scale and the item 11 for insight, the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI) and the Clinical Global Impression scale (CGI). Regression analyses were performed to identify predictors of insight.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The sample had 498 (91%) subjects with good insight (score≤2) and 47 (9%) subjects with poor insight (score>2) as per the Y-BOCS item11. Poor insight group had a significantly higher score on the Y-BOCS compulsions (p<0.001) and total score (p=0.001), the CGI-Severity (p=0.001) and a higher rate of contamination fears (p<0.001) and washing compulsions (p<0.001). Good insight group had a significantly higher frequency of aggressive obsessions (p<0.001). In linear regression, contamination dimension (p=0.007) and Y-BOCS total score (p<0.001) predicted poorer insight and presence of forbidden thoughts (p=0.006) predicted better insight.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Study sample is from a specialty OCD clinic of a major psychiatric hospital in India and therefore, generalizability to other clinical settings may be limited.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Poor insight is associated with severe form of OCD, and is associated with contamination dimension. That degree of insight has specific correlation with certain symptom dimensions adds to the growing knowledge on the dimensional aspect of OCD. Insight has to be systematically assessed in all OCD subjects particularly in those with contamination fears. Failure to systematically assess insight may have treatment implications.
authors.affiliation: National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore, India.
authors.forename: Anish V
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Cherian
authors.forename: Janardhanan C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Narayanaswamy
authors.forename: Ravindra
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Srinivasaraju
authors.forename: Biju
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Viswanath
authors.forename: Suresh B
authors.initials: SB
authors.lastname: Math
authors.forename: Thennarasu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kandavel
authors.forename: Y C Janardhan
authors.initials: YC
authors.lastname: Reddy
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D032882:Comprehension; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D055815:Young Adult