Children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder: the demographic and diagnostic characteristics of 61 Danish patients

Abstract

To find children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a review was made of all the charts of the 4594 nonretarded, nonpsychotic patients treated at the Children's Psychiatric Hospital in Risskov, Denmark, as in- or outpatients from 1970 to 1986. Sixty-one children and adolescents (37 boys and 24 girls) fulfilled the DSM-III criteria for OCD. The frequency of OCD in a child psychiatric clientele was 1.33%, which supports earlier findings. Only 8 of the 61 children were actually discharged with a diagnosis of OCD (ICD-8 diagnosis). Most children were diagnosed as neurosis infantilis and about one fifth received a diagnosis of maladjustment. The possible reasons for this are discussed. It is concluded that it is hardly a matter of underdiagnosing OCD, but more likely an attempt to look upon the obsessive-compulsive symptoms as transient phenomena and perhaps an unwillingness among clinicians to use the diagnosis of OCD, which is often connected with a bad prognosis. Boys and girls with OCD did not differ significantly on important demographic items.