Obsessive-compulsive symptoms among clients attending psychiatric outpatients’ clinic in Duhok

Abstract EN

Background: Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a neuropsychiatric illness, develops in childhood, and can result in considerable impairment to an individual’s lifespan.

The persons suffer from OCD do not seek treatment in medical settings and remain undiagnosed or misdiagnosed, and consequently, the person faces persistent untreated symptoms over time leading to considerable disturbance in familial, academic, or social functioning.

Therefore, careful assessment of OCD symptoms is seminal to clinical practice.

OCD among clients attending the outpatient clinic of Azadi Teaching Hospital in Iraq was assessed in the current study.

Methods: This cross sectional study that consisted of 465 consecutive clients who visited an outpatient psychiatric clinic of Azadi Teaching Hospital in Iraq was designed, and face‑to‑face interview was performed using a translated Arabic version of Padua Inventory‑Washington State University Revision in order to assess the OCD symptoms.

Results: The study confirmed previously unrecognized symptoms of obsessions and compulsions in those who visited the psychiatric outpatients’ clinic.

In addition, it was shown that among total obsessions and compulsions, obsessions included contamination, thoughts of harm to self/others, impulses to harm self/others and compulsions included checking and dressing/grooming and washing which were more prevalent in males, those completed primary school education, completed higher education, and divorced/married clients.

The study did not show any significant difference among different age group and employment aspects.

Conclusion: The study confirmed that some individuals are unaware of their obsessions and compulsions and clinical screening would give us a golden opportunity to their issue recognition and immediate treatment commencement.