Between Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Psychosis

Authors

  • Mafalda Castro Marques Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra
  • Pedro Santos Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra
  • Vera Santos Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Centro Hospitalar e Universitário de Coimbra

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25753/BirthGrowthMJ.v31.i1.19194

Keywords:

adolescent, obsessive-compulsive disorder, psychosis

Abstract

Introduction: Obsessive-compulsive disorder is an heterogeneous condition in which periods of altered perception or delusions may arise. Similarly, individuals with psychotic disorders may have obsessive-compulsive symptoms.

Case report: A male adolescent presented to the Emergency Department (ED) with obsessive symptomatology with three months of evolution. Three weeks later, he returned to the ED showing symptom worsening and reporting delusions, being admitted to the inpatient unit to clarify the diagnosis. No positive symptoms were reported during hospitalization. During follow-up, the patient reported an episode of apparent delusional perception that he associated with the beginning of symptoms, again raising the question of whether a psychotic episode was present.

Discussion/Conclusions: The distinction between obsessive-compulsive disorder and psychosis is not always clear, with obsessive-compulsive disorder being a significant comorbidity in patients with a first psychotic episode. Close patient assessment is required for early diagnosis and appropriate intervention.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Porth R, Geller D. Atypical symptom presentations in children and adolescents with obsessive compulsive disorder. Comprehensive Psychiatry. 2018; 86, 25–30. PMID: 30048852.

Fontenelle LF, Lin A, Pantelis C, Wood SJ, Nelson B, Yung AR. Markers of vulnerability to obsessive-compulsive disorder in an ultra-high risk sample of patients who developed psychosis. Early Intervention in Psychiatry. 2012;6(2), 201–6. PMID: 22510335.

Rodowski MF, Cagande CC, Riddle MA. Childhood Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Presenting as Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology. 2008;18(4), 395–401. PMID: 18759651.

Hagen K, Hansen B, Joa I, Larsen TK. Prevalence and clinical characteristics of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder in first-episode psychosis. BMC Psychiatry. 2013;13(1). PMID: 23721089.

Niendam TA, Berzak J, Cannon TD, Bearden CE. Obsessive compulsive symptoms in the psychosis prodrome: Correlates of clinical and functional outcome. Schizophrenia Research. 2009;108(1-3), 170–5. PMID: 19097751.

World Health Organization. ICD-10: international statistical classification of diseases and related health problems: tenth revision, 2nd ed. World Health Organization. ‎2004.

American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5. American Psychiatric Association. Washington D.C. 2013.

Selles RR et al. Symptom Insight in Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Outcomes of an International Aggregated Cross-Sectional Sample. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. 2018;57(8),615–9.e5. PMID: 30071984.

Oulis P, Konstantakopoulos G, Lykouras L, Michalopoulou P. Differential diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive symptoms from delusions in schizophrenia: A phenomenological approach. World Journal of Psychiatry. 2013; 3(3), 50. PMID: 24255875.

Rosli ANM, Wan Ismail WS. Comorbidity of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Schizophrenia in an Adolescent. Case Reports in Psychiatry. 2015; 1–3. PMID: 26483984.

Hwang MY, Opler LA. Schizophrenia with obsessive-compulsive features: Assessment and treatment. Psychiatric Annals 1994;24(9), 468–72.

Scotti-Muzzi E, Saide OL. Schizo-obsessive spectrum disorders: an update. CNS Spectrums. 2016;22(03), 258–272. PMID: 27669819.

Faragian S, Fuchs C, Pashinian A, Weizman R, Weizman A, Poyurovsky M. Age-of-onset of schizophrenic and obsessive-compulsive symptoms in patients with schizo-obsessive disorder. Psychiatry Research. 2012;197(1-2), 19–2. PMID: 22436351.

Downloads

Published

2022-04-04

How to Cite

1.
Marques MC, Santos P, Santos V. Between Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and Psychosis. BGMJ [Internet]. 2022 Apr. 4 [cited 2026 Jan. 12];31(1):59-63. Available from: https://revistas.rcaap.pt/bgmj/article/view/19194

Issue

Vol. 31 No. 1 (2022)

Section

Clinical Case Reports

License

Copyright (c) 2022 Mafalda Castro Marques, Pedro Santos, Vera Santos

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

All articles published in the Birth and Growth Medical Journal are Open Access and meet the requirements of funding agencies and academic institutions. Third-party use of published content is permitted under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) license. It is the responsibility of authors to obtain permission for reproducing figures, tables, or other materials from previously published works.

Authors must submit a Conflict of Interest statement and an Authorship Form together with their manuscript. A confirmation email will be sent to the corresponding author upon receipt of the submission. Authors are also permitted to deposit their articles in institutional or personal repositories, provided that the original publication in the Birth and Growth Medical Journal is clearly indicated and the terms of the Creative Commons license are respected.