Symptom dimensions in Chinese patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder

To study the symptom dimensions of Chinese patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the symptom checklist of the Dimensional Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (DY-BOCS) was used to assess the symptom dimensions of 139 OCD patients at a mental health center in Shanghai. The most common symptom dimensions were symmetry (67.6%), contamination (43.2%), and aggression (31.7%). The frequency of patients with the miscellaneous, sexual/religious, and hoarding symptom dimensions was 25.9%, 10.8%, and 8.6%, respectively. The frequency of male patients with symmetry concerns was higher than that of the female patients, and the frequency of female patients with contamination concerns was higher than that of male patients. OCD symptom dimensions can be identified in the Chinese context but there is a low frequency of endorsement of certain dimensions: sexual/religious, aggression, and hoarding concerns. Future studies need to further investigate the sociocultural and gender factors that may result in these findings: low numbers of people in China with a religious affiliation and the Chinese emphasis on Confucian harmony philosophy, thrift, and saving.