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. 2022 Mar:147:307-312.
doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychires.2022.01.065. Epub 2022 Feb 1.

The impact of COVID-19 on patients with OCD: A one-year follow-up study

Maria E Moreira-de-Oliveira  1 , Gabriela B de Menezes  2 , Carla P Loureiro  3 , Luana D Laurito  4 , Lucy Albertella  5 , Leonardo F Fontenelle  6
Affiliations

The impact of COVID-19 on patients with OCD: A one-year follow-up study

Maria E Moreira-de-Oliveira et al. J Psychiatr Res. 2022 Mar.

Abstract

Background: Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns regarding its psychological effects on people with preexisting psychiatric disorders have been raised, particularly obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Nevertheless, only a few longitudinal studies have been performed, and a more longstanding follow-up of a clinical sample is needed. In this study, our aim was to investigate the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on symptom changes in a sample of Brazilian OCD patients for about a one-year period.

Methods: Thirty OCD outpatients seen in a specialized OCD clinic in Rio de Janeiro were evaluated at baseline and after one year (during the pandemic). Sociodemographic and clinical variables were collected along with a questionnaire aimed at quantifying the number of stressful events related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Comparisons between two time points (pre vs. during COVID-19) and two subgroups (patients with vs without worsening of symptoms) were carried out.

Results: As a group, OCD patients treated with SRIs had an overall stabilization of symptoms throughout the follow-up period, regardless of the number of stressful experiences related to coronavirus (median baseline YBOCS remained 22.0 at follow-up). In addition, when individually analyzed, even those who reported an increase in their symptoms did not describe a greater number of COVID-19 related events.

Conclusions: Patients with OCD, who were under treatment, did not show significant symptom deterioration as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Individual variations in OCD symptom severity did not seem to be related to experiences linked to coronavirus.

Keywords: COVID-19; Obsessive-compulsive disorder; Psychological distress.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no conflict of competing interesting to report.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
YBOCS scoring changes from baseline (before COVID-19) to follow-up (during COVID-19). Footnote: YBOCS = Yale Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale; P1, P2, P3, …, P30 = YBOCS scoring of patients 1 to 30.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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