الفهرس 
OVERVIEW ABOUT OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE DISORDEROnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
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bsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a neuropsychiatric disorder affecting approximately 1–3% of the population with a chronic, distressing, anxiety disorder associated and significant functional impairment, characterized by the presence of persistent intrusive, recurrent thoughts, impulses, or images (obsessions) and/or repetitive behaviors, rituals or mental acts (compulsions) that cause a significant distress or interference with daily functioning and impairment in quality of life and social and familial relationships . Numerous research indicate that in OCD a dysfunction of the cortico-striato-thalamo-cortical (CSTC) control loops and a corresponding imbalance of various neurotransmitters and -modulators are pathogenetically relevant.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder treatment may not result in a cure, but it can help bring symptoms under control so that they don’t rule your daily life. It may consist of medication, psychotherapy or both. OCD responds well to cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).
OCD is associated with a high risk for suicidal behavior due to its disabling course and leads to a huge impact in different areas, such as sociability, family relationships, occupational and/or academic performance, and financial difficulties. Suicidality in OCD patients has been underestimated or paid less interest over the past decade. Because people with OCD often tend to avoid potential harm and fend off aggressive impulses using psychodynamic defenses such as “isolation of affect,” suicide has been thought to occur infrequently in OCD patients.
This thesis was designed aiming at covering the following areas in the theoretical part: (1) An overview about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder its diagnosis and management, (2) An overview about Suicide, its theories and management, and (3) Review of the association between Suicide and obsessive compulsive disorder.
There is a reasonable probability that the patient of OCD have suicidal thoughts, plans or actually attempt suicide. As to best of our knowledge there is no published data on the suicidal behavior with OCD. So we aimed to detect frequency of suicidality and evaluate several aspects.
We hypothesized that Suicidal thoughts and behaviors are a fairly neglected area of study in patients with OCD and there are limited data on it. Thus, we investigated Type and severity of symptoms, associated impulsivity and probability of suicide in a sample diagnosed with OCD.
The present study evaluated 81 patients diagnosed with OCD and carried out at the Institute of Psychiatry, Ain Shams University. We obtained an informed consent and inclusion criteria were insured before the study was conducted which included age between 18-45 years, male and female subjects irrespective to their social or educational background.
The tools were precisely selected to fulfil the purpose of the study, that included the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID-I), Yale-Brown Obsessive–Compulsive Scale (YBOCS), Barratt impulsivity scale (BIS), Suicide Probability Scale (SPS) and Scale for suicide Ideation (SSI).
All data gathered were recorded, tabulated and transferred on Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) using personal computer and the suitable statistical parameters were used. Results were displayed to answer questions raised in the hypothesis of this study.
On demographic characteristics, our study demonstrated that the mean age of the patients was 31.78 (±8.10) years. It also showed that 55.6% of the sample were males, 55.6% were single and 44.4% were unemployed. Most of them from Urban (74.1%) Overall, 6.2% of the study populations show low level of education including primary school, while 33.3% among those with middle level of education who have finished preparatory or technical education and 60.5 % have finished high education.
On clinical characteristics, our study demonstrated that the higher severity of OCD symptoms higher frequencies of particular types of symptoms like sexual/religious and/or Cleaning/checking symptoms, history of long standing OCD, treatment refractory or resistance OCD, past history of suicide attempts had significantly higher scores of suicidal ideation. There was a significantly positive correlation between disease severity and degree of suicidal ideation and probability to attempt suicide. Poisoning was the most frequent method used, perhaps because of the availability of prescription drugs. Hence, OCD should be added to the list of psychiatric disorders that are known to increase the risk of suicide in their own right. Hence, Suicide risk needs to be carefully monitored in these patients, particularly in those who have previously attempted suicide.Identification and recognition of risk factors for suicidal behavior in OCD should guide the development of empirically based preventive and intervention strategies aimed at reducing suicide rates.