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Aripiprazole augmentation in highly treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder - experience from a specialty

Aditya Hegde¹, Bangalore G Kalyani¹, Shyam Sundar Arumugham¹

¹a OCD Clinic, Department of Psychiatry , National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) , Bangalore , India.

International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice

|September 16, 2016

Abstract

Objective:

To study the effectiveness and tolerability of aripiprazole augmentation in patients with highly treatment-resistant obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in a real-world scenario.

Methods:

We conducted a chart review of patients who were initiated on aripiprazole augmentation at a specialty OCD clinic in India between 2004 and 2014. Primary outcome measure was all-cause discontinuation.

Results:

23 patients were eligible for analysis. Patients had not achieved symptom remission despite a mean of over 3 prior SRI trials. Aripiprazole was continued to be used in seven patients (30%) at the time of last follow-up. Thirteen patients (57%) discontinued the drug due to side effects, and three patients (13%) discontinued aripiprazole citing no improvement. Six patients (26%) were noted to have ≥25% reduction on the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale.

Conclusions:

The study demonstrated, in a real-world setting, that aripiprazole may be a useful augmenting agent in a proportion of patients with highly treatment-resistant OCD. However, side effects may lead to premature discontinuation in many of them.

Keywords:

Aripiprazole OCD augmentation obsessive–compulsive disorder resistant

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