Comorbidity of obsessive-compulsive disorders in childhood and adolescence

Objective: The cross-sectional comorbidity of child and adolescent inpatients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) was assessed. Methods: The hospital records of all inpatients treated for OCD since 1976 (31 girls, 46 boys) were compared with data from a prospective epidemiological longitudinal study (90 girls, 84 boys) in two age cohorts (< 15 years; greater than or equal to 15 years) with regard to comorbid psychiatric diagnoses. Additionally, psychiatric Axis I diagnoses of patients with a supplementary diagnosis of compulsive symptoms (n = 45) were descriptively assessed in the client population. Results: In the subgroup of OCD patients < 15 years, boys showed a higher incidence of tic disorders. OCD girls greater than or equal to 15 years showed a tendency toward more frequent comorbid affective disorders and a significant result regarding concurrent eating disorders. Eighteen of 27 female patients with supplementary compulsive symptoms requiring clinical intervention had an Axis I diagnosis of eating disorder. Conclusions: Due to different criteria of classification, diverging definitions of comorbidity and different age cohorts and samples, studies on comorbidity in OCD patients are difficult to compare. The frequency of comorbid psychiatric disorders may be over-estimated if the general prevalence of psychiatric disorders in terms of gender and age is not taken into account.