Obsessive-compulsive disorder with and without tics in an epidemiological sample of adolescents

This study was undertaken to discriminate subtypes of obsessive-compulsive disorder in adolescents.

Forty individuals with obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders were ascertained from an epidemiological sample of 861 adolescents. Interviews were conducted by child psychiatrists using semistructured diagnostic interviews, including a clinician-rated Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale. Discriminant analysis was performed to compare the scores on the Yale-Brown scale of groups with and without comorbid tics and to compare boys and girls.

Adolescents with tics were more prone to aggressive and sexual images and obsessions than were adolescents without tics; these differences could not be wholly attributed to sex differences.

The subtypes among unreferred adolescents are similar to those of adult patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder with and without Gilles de la Tourette syndrome. Subtypes evident in adulthood may be established relatively early in the natural course of obsessive-compulsive disorder.