A cross-sectional study of the phenomenology of obsessive-compulsive disorder

Abstract

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a clinical syndrome whose hallmarks are excessive, anxiety-evoking thoughts and compulsive behaviours that are generally recognised as unreasonable, but which cause significant distress and impairment. Heterogeneous nature of OCD presentation makes its conceptualisation as a complicated one. Phenomenological studies are needed to understand various heterogeneity OCD. This study is intended to see various phenomenological subtypes of OCD in the local population. This is a hospital-based cross-sectional study. Two hundred consecutive OCD patients attending psychiatry OPD analysed for the various social-demographic features and phenomenological findings. In our study, 48% of the sample had only obsessions, 19% had only compulsions, while 33% had a mixed presentation, studying the subtypes, the study revealed that 36.5% of the sample who presented with fear of contamination and 11.5 % samples have an aggressive obsession and another 11.5 % samples have symmetry obsession. 28% had contamination obsessions, 9% had sexual obsessions, 7% had somatic obsessions while 9% had religious obsessions, and 6% had various types of obsessions. When compulsion was assessed, it was found to be checking 28 (77.8%), cleaning 25 (69%), repeating 18 (50%), counting 6 (16%), ordering 4 (11%), collecting 4 (11%) and miscellaneous 15 (42%) when subtyped. Studying the phenomenological pattern in OCD patient would help in better understanding of the illness of the patients, it also tries to attempt the relationship between sociocultural issues and OCD. Though the neurobiology is similar in all individuals, phenomenology differs between individuals concerning gender, religion and culture.