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Three types of obsessive compulsive disorder in a community sample
Author(s) -
Henderson J. Gibson,
Pollard C. Alec
Publication year - 1988
Publication title -
journal of clinical psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.124
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1097-4679
pISSN - 0021-9762
DOI - 10.1002/1097-4679(198809)44:5<747::aid-jclp2270440513>3.0.co;2-2
Subject(s) - psychology , obsessive compulsive , population , psychiatry , clinical psychology , prevalence , sample (material) , demography , chemistry , chromatography , sociology
Until recently, prior estimates of the prevalence of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) have been based on clinical data. The present investigation studied point prevalence and demographic data that pertain to three ritualbased forms of OCD in a sample of the adult general population of the greater St. Louis area. Two hundred fifty male and 247 female subjects were administered a structured interview designed to identify the presence of symptoms associated with OCD according to DSM‐III criteria. The overall prevalence rate of OCD was 2.8%. The most prevalent form of OCD involved checking (1.6%), followed by a miscellaneous category that included repeating, counting and collecting rituals (1.0%) and, finally, washing compulsions (0.8%). Subjects with OCD did not differ demographically from the rest of the sample except that they were more likely to live in the city. Results indicate that OCD is more prevalent than previously supposed and that checking compulsions may be the most common form of ritual in nonclinical samples.