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Comorbid Depression Negatively Affects Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Treatment Outcome

Depression is seen commonly in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and could negatively affect treatment outcome, Dutch researchers report.

They say patients with OCD-alone demonstrate more improvement when treated with a combination of pharmacological and behavioural therapy than do patients with comorbid depression and OCD.

Investigators from Maastricht University and Psychiatric Hospital Vijverdal in Maastricht, the Netherlands, did a retrospective chart analysis of baseline ratings for 120 OCD patients and post-treatment ratings for 72 of these patients.

Patients were evaluated before and after the treatment using the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale, the Self-Rating Depression Scale, the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale and the Maudsley Obsessive Compulsive Inventory, the Self-Rating Anxiety Scale, the Clinical Anxiety Scale, and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory.

One third of patients were found to have depression. There was no difference in symptom severity at baseline between those who were depressed and those who were not.

Depressed and non-depressed patients both responded to treatment, but the researchers say co-morbid depression had a negative effect on treatment outcome. Depressed OCD patients had less improvement on most scales for depressive, obsessive-compulsive and general anxiety symptoms than did non-depressed patients.
Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 2002;63:12:1106-1112. "Comorbidity of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Depression: Prevalence, Symptom Severity, and Treatment Effect."

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