Impact of COVID-19 on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
,
Abstract
Objective: Handwashing is now considered as one of the best safety measures to prevent COVID-19 infection. The effect of excessive handwashing for health on OCD patients who are already having washing compulsion is not known. Furthermore, the fear of contamination of COVID-19 in patients who already have obsession of contamination is not known. This study aims to evaluate the effect of COVID-19 on OCD patients.
Method: Phone interviews were done with 84 patients previously diagnosed with obsession of contamination and compulsive washing. Yale Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale was used and the scores of the participants were compared to their prepandemic scores.
Results: Only 5 patients (6%) had exacerbation of symptoms after the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of the patients did not report any deterioration of symptoms due to the pandemic.
Conclusion: Handwashing protocol does not aggravate the washing compulsion of patients. Similarly, the fear of infection with COVID-19 does not increase their fear of contamination.
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19. Davide P, Andrea P, Martina O, Andrea E, Davide D, Mario A. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with OCD: Effects of contamination symptoms and remission state before the quarantine in a preliminary naturalistic study. Psychiatry Res. 2020;291:113213.
20. Pozza A, Marazziti D. Risk for pathological contamination fears at coronavirus time: Proposal of early intervention and prevention strategies. Clinical Neuropsychiatry. 2020;17(2):100–2.
21. Cao W, Fang Z, Hou G, Han M, Xu X, Dong J, et al. The psychological impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on college students in China. Psychiatry Res. 2020;287:112934.
22. Nicolini H, Salin-Pascual R, Cabrera B, Lanzagorta N. Influence of Culture in Obsessive-compulsive Disorder and Its Treatment. Curr Psychiatry Rev. 2017;13(4):285-92.
23. Coronavirus disease 2019. World Health Organization. Available from: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019. Last accessed July 16 2020].
24. Rivera RM, Carballea D. Coronavirus: A trigger for OCD and illness anxiety disorder? Psychol Trauma. 2020.
25. Fineberg NA, Van Ameringen M, Drummond L, Hollander E, Stein DJ, Geller D, et al. How to manage obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) under COVID-19: A clinician's guide from the International College of Obsessive Compulsive Spectrum Disorders (ICOCS) and the Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders Research Network (OCRN) of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Compr Psychiatry. 2020;100:152174.
2. Health and Family Welfare Department. Govt. of West Bengal. Available from: https://www.wbhealth.gov.in/ [Last accessed on 2020 July 16]
3. Kumar A, Somani A. Dealing with Corona virus anxiety and OCD. Asian J Psychiatr. 2020;51:102053.
4. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association; 2013.
5. French I, Lyne J. Acute exacerbation of OCD symptoms precipitated by media reports of COVID-19. Ir J Psychol Med. 2020:1-4.
6. Ruscio AM, Stein DJ, Chiu WT, Kessler RC. The epidemiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. Mol Psychiatry. 2010;15(1):53-63.
7. Browne HA, Gair SL, Scharf JM, Grice DE. Genetics of obsessive-compulsive disorder and related disorders. Psychiatr Clin North Am. 2014;37(3):319-35.
8. Murphy DL, Timpano KR, Wheaton MG, Greenberg BD, Miguel EC. Obsessive-compulsive disorder and its related disorders: a reappraisal of obsessive-compulsive spectrum concepts. Dialogues Clin Neurosci. 2010;12(2):131-48.
9. Rasmussen SA, Eisen JL. The epidemiology and clinical features of obsessive compulsive disorder. Psychiatr Clin North Am. 1992;15(4):743-58.
10. Cordeiro T, Sharma MP, Thennarasu K, Reddy YC. Symptom Dimensions in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Obsessive Beliefs. Indian J Psychol Med. 2015;37(4):403-8.
11. Banerjee DD. The other side of COVID-19: Impact on obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and hoarding. Psychiatry Res. 2020;288:112966.
12. Andrade C. COVID-19 and lockdown: Delayed effects on health. Indian Journal of Psychiatry. 2020;62(3):247-9.
13. Janardhan Reddy YC, Sundar AS, Narayanaswamy JC, Math SB. Clinical practice guidelines for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. Indian J Psychiatry. 2017;59(Suppl 1):S74-s90.
14. Chatterjee SS, Barikar CM, Mukherjee A. Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on pre-existing mental health problems. Asian J Psychiatr. 2020;51:102071.
15. Duan L, Zhu G. Psychological interventions for people affected by the COVID-19 epidemic. Lancet Psychiatry. 2020;7(4):300-2.
16. Adam D. The hellish side of handwashing: how coronavirus is affecting people with OCD. The Guardian. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/mar/13/why-regular-handwashing-can-be-bad-advice-for-patients. [Last accessed 16 July 2020]
17. Brooks SK, Webster RK, Smith LE, Woodland L, Wessely S, Greenberg N, et al. The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: rapid review of the evidence. Lancet. 2020;395(10227):912-20.
18. Fontenelle LF, Miguel EC. The impact of coronavirus (COVID-19) in the diagnosis and treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Depress Anxiety. 2020;37(6):510-1.
19. Davide P, Andrea P, Martina O, Andrea E, Davide D, Mario A. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients with OCD: Effects of contamination symptoms and remission state before the quarantine in a preliminary naturalistic study. Psychiatry Res. 2020;291:113213.
20. Pozza A, Marazziti D. Risk for pathological contamination fears at coronavirus time: Proposal of early intervention and prevention strategies. Clinical Neuropsychiatry. 2020;17(2):100–2.
21. Cao W, Fang Z, Hou G, Han M, Xu X, Dong J, et al. The psychological impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on college students in China. Psychiatry Res. 2020;287:112934.
22. Nicolini H, Salin-Pascual R, Cabrera B, Lanzagorta N. Influence of Culture in Obsessive-compulsive Disorder and Its Treatment. Curr Psychiatry Rev. 2017;13(4):285-92.
23. Coronavirus disease 2019. World Health Organization. Available from: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019. Last accessed July 16 2020].
24. Rivera RM, Carballea D. Coronavirus: A trigger for OCD and illness anxiety disorder? Psychol Trauma. 2020.
25. Fineberg NA, Van Ameringen M, Drummond L, Hollander E, Stein DJ, Geller D, et al. How to manage obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) under COVID-19: A clinician's guide from the International College of Obsessive Compulsive Spectrum Disorders (ICOCS) and the Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders Research Network (OCRN) of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Compr Psychiatry. 2020;100:152174.
| Files | ||
| Issue | Vol 15 No 3 (2020) | |
| Section | Short Communication(s) | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.18502/ijps.v15i3.3820 | |
| PMCID | PMC7603587 | |
| PMID | 33193776 | |
| Keywords | ||
| COVID 19 Contamination OCD Washing | ||
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |
How to Cite
1.
Chakraborty A, Karmakar S. Impact of COVID-19 on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Iran J Psychiatry. 2020;15(3):256-259.
