GENDER-MEDIATED FEATURES OF OBSESSIVE-COM PULSIVE DISORDER AND SYNDROMES

A large french survey ''Screening-Understanding-Treating OCD'' was con ducted in 1994 with the participation of 240 psychiatrists. The phase 2 (clinical phase) has included a cohort of 646 patients with OCD or O CS (DSM-III-R criteria) and explored in details the clinical aspects o f the obsessive-compulsive illness (typology, symptomatic categories, comorbidity, OCD spectrum, psychiatric family history and treatment hi story...). The results concerning the gender-mediated clinical manifes tations of OCD/OCS are detailed as follow: -Male obsessional patients suffered more frequently from aggressive sexual or religious obsessive thoughts and from symetry-ordre obsessions. They also showed higher r ate of OCD than OCS, higher scores on global severity scales (NIMH-OC, CPRS-OC), more avoidance behavior and compulsive slowness, higher com orbidity rate with hypochodriasis and compulsive paraphilia: -female p atients presented higher comorbidity rate with eating disorders and co mpulsive buying. These results are relevant in practice and contribute to explain some aspects of gender-mediated clinical expression in obs essions and compulsions. More investigations are needed to detail the severity augmentation of OCD in male patients.