Harm avoidance in subjects with obsessive-compulsive disorder and their families

This study investigates the role of harm avoidance (HA) as a possible risk factor in the familiality of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). HA is considered to be a genetically influenced personality trait with an increasingly understood neuroanatomical basis.

75 subjects with OCD from hospital sites and a community sample and their 152 first degree relatives and 75 age and sex matched controls with their 143 first degree relatives were evaluated with structured clinical interviews (DSM-IV). HA was assessed with Cloninger's Tridimensional Personality Questionnaire (TPQ).

Subjects with OCD had higher scores of HA than controls (p

The investigation of HA alone does not allow to disentangle the transmission of biological versus psychological factors related to an elevated level of anxiety in families of OCD cases.

This is the first study to extent previous findings of elevated HA in OCD cases to their first degree relatives. Thus, HA may partially mediate the familial risk for OCD.