N. Muller et al., CHARACTERISTICS OF OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE SYMPTOMS IN TOURETTES-SYNDROME, OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER, AND PARKINSONS-DISEASE, Psychiatry research, 70(2), 1997, pp. 105-114
A high incidence of obsessions and compulsions is documented in basal
ganglia disorders, especially in patients with Tourette's syndrome (TS
). A comparison of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD),
TS, and Parkinson's disease (PD) revealed significantly higher total s
cores in both OCD and TS patients than in a healthy control group on t
he Maudsley obsessive-compulsive inventory (MOCI) and the Hamburg obse
ssive-compulsive inventory (HZI-K), two self-report measures of obsess
ive-compulsive symptoms. On most subscales (especially Checking, Order
ing, and Counting/touching), TS patients scored higher than controls.
Patients with Parkinson's disease merely scored higher on the subscale
'Ordering' of the HZI-K. Differences between OCD patients and TS pati
ents were evident on the MOCI subscales 'Checking' and 'Slowness/Repet
ition' as well as on the MOCI total score and on the HZI subscales 'Cl
eaning' and 'Obsessive Thoughts'. On these scales, TS patients reporte
d fewer symptoms than OCD patients. Stepwise discriminant analysis wit
h preselected single items as variables was used to look for specific
symptom patterns of OCD and TS. Seventy-eight percent of the patients
could be correctly classified with respect to their diagnoses on the b
asis of only two items of the HZI-K. One item asks for fearful obsessi
ve thoughts, which was found in 90% of the OCD patients; the second it
em represented echo phenomena, found in 56% of the TS patients. It is
concluded that considering specific patterns of obsessive-compulsive p
sychopathology may contribute to a more reliable differential diagnosi
s in OCD and TS and help to avoid misdiagnosis of OCD in TS patients.
(C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.