Influence of age of onset on clinical features in obsessive-compulsive disorder

We compared early-onset and late-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients in terms of demographic and clinical features. One hundred sixteen outpatients whose primary diagnosis was OCD according to DSM-IV diagnostic criteria were recruited. Early-onset (n = 50) and late-onset (n = 66) OCD groups were compared with respect to demographic variables and scores obtained on various scales. A male gender predominance was found in early-onset OCD group. Symmetry/exactness obsessions, religious obsessions, boarding/saving obsessions, and boarding/collecting compulsions also were significantly more frequent in the early-onset group than in the late-onset group. The results may suggest a phenotypic difference between the two groups. Further studies are needed to investigate the differences between early-onset and late-onset OCD groups to examine the hypothesis that early-onset OCD is a distinct subtype of the disorder. Depression and Anxiety 21:112-117, 2005. (c) 2005 Wiley-Liss, Inc

Socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of individuals with diagnoses of eating disorder in a university hospital in Istanbul

OBJECTIVE: This paper reports the first-ever description of a clinical eating disorder population from Turkey. The aim of this study was to examine the socio-demographic and clinical characteristics of individuals with diagnosis of eating disorders (IDED) referred to a university psychiatry clinic in Istanbul between 2003 and 2009. METHOD: The diagnoses and subtype of 111 IDEDs, the referral type to the hospital, setting of treatment, and state of involuntary hospitalization were evaluated by interview and semi-structured questionnaire. RESULTS: The clinical sample included 64 individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN), 38 with bulimia nervosa (BN), and 9 with eating disorder not otherwise specified (EDNOS), including only one male. Younger individuals and those with a lower BMI were significantly more likely to be family referred and hospitalized involuntarily. DISCUSSION: The overall socio-demographic features of the sample are generally consistent with data collected in other communities. However, aspects of the clinical features, referral types of eating disorders and subtypes exhibit some characteristics peculiar to our sample. (Eating Weight Disord. 16: e274-e279, 2011).(C)2011, Editrice Kurti