Early maladaptive schemas activated in patients with obsessive compulsive disorder: A cross-sectional study

Aim. The aim of the present article is to investigate the activation patterns of early maladaptive schemas (EMSs) in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Method. During the time between 1 January 2006 and 1 April 2006, 45 consecutive patients from an outpatient facility of a general hospital and 45 age- and gender-matched healthy control subjects from the hospital staff were included in the study. They were administered the Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnosis of DSM-IV Mental Disorders (SCID-1), the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R Personality Disorders (SCID-2), the Young Schema Questionnaire-Short Form (YSQ-SF), the Young Parenting Inventory (YPI) and the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS). The results were assessed using GraphPad Prisma V.3 statistical program. Results. The YSQ total score of the OCD group was significantly higher than the control group (t=3.62, P<0.0001). The average scores of the patients with OCD on certain schemas were significantly higher than the average scores of the control group, although the others did not make any difference between the OCD and control groups. Conclusion. The study demonstrates that, in the patients with OCD, most of the early maladaptive schemas including social isolation, vulnerability and pessimism, are prominently activated.