Prevalence and Correlates of Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms in Adolescent Patients with Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms.

Background: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) patients are often comorbid with depression and anxiety. However, limited research has explored this comorbidity from the perspective of individuals with depression and anxiety exhibiting obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS). This study aims to investigate the prevalence and potential associations between depression, anxiety, and OCS in the adolescent patient population.

Methods: A retrospective study was employed in this research. A total of: 327 drug-naive, first-episode adolescent patients aged 10 to 19 years, presenting both depressive and anxiety symptoms, were recruited from the Shanghai Pudong New Area Mental Health Center in China. The Chinese version of the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90) was used to assess the severity of OCS. Binary logistic regression was applied to analyze the influence of depression and anxiety levels on OCS.

Results: More than half (52.3%) of the 327 adolescent participants with depressive and anxiety symptoms had severe obsessive-compulsive symptoms (OCS). Additionally, 35.9% had moderate OCS, 12.9% had mild OCS, and only 2.8% were symptom-free. The results also indicated a significant correlation between OCS and both depression (β = 0.073, Wald χ² < 0.001, p < 0.005) and anxiety levels (β = 0.066, Wald χ² < 0.005, p < 0.001).

Conclusions: The findings provide valuable insights into the predictive ability of depression and anxiety level in the development of OCS and OCD during adolescence, highlighting the importance of early identification and intervention. Future studies should include a larger and more diverse sample, with the incorporation of professional clinical evaluations to further verify these results.

Clinical trial registration: The study was registered at https://www.chictr.org.cn/, registration number: ChiCTR2300070007.