The obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders

Abstract

Obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders have, over the past few years, emerged as a distinct category of related disorders with important diagnostic, etiologic and therapeutic implications. This group of unique diagnostic entities may affect up to 10% of the US population and is characterized by intrusive obsessive thoughts or repetitive behaviors. Obsessive-compulsive related disorders may overlap with OCD in terms of clinical symptoms, associated features (age of onset, clinical course and comorbidity), presumed etiology, familial transmission and response to selective pharmacological or behavioral treatments. In this paper, we present an overview of the obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders and explore somatoform, dissociative, eating, schizo-obsessive, tic, neurologic and impulse control disorders.