Comorbid OCD Common in Bipolar Disorder Patients

Co-occurrence of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in patients with bipolar disorder type I (BD-I) is not uncommon and is associated with increased functional disability, research findings indicate.

The study included 396 patients with BD-I consecutively admitted to the inpatient services of an Indian mental health institute over a 1-year period. Of these, 30 (7.6%) had comorbid OCD, scoring higher than 15 on the Yale–Brown Obsessive–Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) and fulfilling the DSM-IV criteria for OCD. A further 15 (3.8%) patients had subclinical OCD, with a Y-BOCS score below 7.

There was no significant difference between patients with OCD and those with subclinical OCD in terms of functioning, severity of manic and depressive symptoms or in the number of hospitalizations.

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