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Clinical and subclinical body dysmorphic disorder
C Altamura1, M M Paluello, E Mundo
1Psychiatry, University of Milan, Italy. altamura@ospedalesacco.lom.it
Background:
The aim of the study was to define the main demographic and clinical characteristics of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD) and subclinical BDD (sBDD) in a sample derived by a screening survey done on a population of individuals referring to aesthetical medicine centers.
Method:
487 subjects referring to hospital centers for aesthetical medicine were administered the SCID-I and the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale adapted for BDD (BDD-YBOCS). The sample was thus sub-divided in three sub-samples: 1) BDD, 2) sub-clinical BDD, and 3) controls. The main demographic and clinical variables were considered and compared between the BDD and the sBDD samples.
Results:
As previously reported, the prevalence of BDD and sBDD was 6.3% and 18.4%, respectively. The most frequent comorbid diagnosis in both BDD and sBDD patients and their relatives was Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). A higher severity of symptoms was found in male BDD patients, while no gender-related differences were found in the sBDD group. Suicidal ideation was found in 12.1% of the sBDD and in 49.7% of the BDD patients.
Conclusions:
These results support the hypothesis of BDD and sBDD belonging to the OCD spectrum, and appear to advise long-term follow-up studies on the course and the prognosis of sBDD.