A family study of juvenile obsessive-compulsive disorder

Objectives: To determine whether juvenile obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is familial and whether the rate of Tourette syndrome (TS) and tic disorders is higher among relatives of patients with OCDD than among relatives of control objectives. Method: We assessed first-degree relatives of 35 juvenile OCD probands (aged 16 years or less) and 34 matched, physicatrically unaffected control subjects, using the Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents-Revised (DICA-R) (unpublished), a Questionnaire for tic disorders, the Children's Version of Leyton's Obsessional Inventory (CV-LOI), and the Childrens Version of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (CY-BOCS). Similarly, we assessed adult relatives, using the schedule for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (SCAN), Leyton's Obsessional Inventory (LOI), the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS), and a Questionnaire for tic disorders. The diagnosis were determined by consensus, using DSM-III-R criteria. We calculated age-corrected morbid risk, using Weinburg's method. Results: The morbid risk for OCD among the relatives of OCD probands was 4.96%, while none of the relatives or control subjects had any tic disorder. Conclusion: Most juvenile cases of OCD are nonfamilial and unrelated to tic disorders, while only a few are familial. There is a better need to re-examine the issue of familiality in cases of OCD, as well as its relation to TS, using larger community samples to better understand the hypotheses of familial transmission and comorbidity with tic disorders.