Comorbidity and obsessive-compulsive disorders. Part I: Axis I comorbidity

Method: The present study examines the frequency of axis I diagnoses (DSM-I II-R) in 616 patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, which were treate d in an inpatient behavior-therapeutic setting. Furthermore, the therapeuti c relevance of high and low comorbidity in patients with OCD was considered . Results: The rates of comorbidity for our sample confirm the results of p reviously published research. We found an overall rate of comorbidity of 38 %, which means that 38% of the patients with an obsessive-compulsive disord er showed more than one psychiatric diagnosis. For affective disorders OCD patients presented with a comorbidity rate of 22.1 and 6.5% for anxiety dis orders. Conclusions, Our findings suggest that comorbid axis I diagnoses te nd to increase the time of treatment and to decrease the quality of therapy outcome.