Journal de la dépression et de l'anxiété
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Pattern of Obsessive Compulsive Symptoms among Patients with Bipolar-I Disorder

Menan A Rabie, Eman Shorub, Ahmed K Al-awady, Abdel-Nasser M Omar and Hisham A Ramy

Background: Clinicians have observed the occurrence of obsessive and/or compulsive symptoms within the course of bipolar disorder. However the pattern of their occurrence is not clearly delineated. This study aimed to explore this pattern.

Method: A cross sectional study. All patients were assessed by the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID I) to diagnose bipolar disorder (BD) and comorbid obsessive compulsive (OC) symptoms. The symptom severity was assessed by Young Mania Rating Scale (YMRS), Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II), Yale-Brown Obsessions and compulsions Scale (Y-BOCS).

Results: Sixty two patients were classified into two groups: BD comorbid with OC symptoms (BD-OC) and BD with no comorbidity (BD). High rates of OC symptoms in BD patients (38.7%) with higher educational level in the BDOC group, and higher rates of unemployment were noticed among patients of BD–OC group. The smoking was more prevalent in BD group than BD-OC group. The most common among BD-OC subjects were contamination, religious and aggressive obsessions and cleaning/washing and counting compulsions.

Limitations: The prevalence rates are not to be generalized because of the small size of the sample. Most of the history was taken from the patients and their relatives depending on their memory. More experimental study designs about the effectiveness of different types of management strategies would be beneficial to the patients.

Conclusion: Bipolar Patients with comorbid Obsessive and/or Compulsive symptoms showed higher educational levels, unemployment, greater functional impairment, and less smoking. Most common obsessions were contamination, religious and aggressive obsessions, cleaning and counting compulsions.