A neuropsychological perspective of OCD subtypes

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether there is a relationship between symptom subtype of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and performance on a group of neuropsychological tests. A group of 62 adults with OCD were compared with 35 adult controls. Participants were divided into homogeneous subtypes of OCD based on age of onset of the disorder and by the presence or absence of hoarding symptoms. Performance was examined on the Block Design (BD), Benton Visual Retention Test (BVRT), Wisconsin Card Sort Test (WCST), and Attentional Set Shifting Test (ID/ED).;There were no differences between groups for performance on the ID/ED test and the WCST; however, there was a trend for those with earlier age of onset to perform significantly worse than controls on the extradimensional shift stage of the ID/ED. Those with earlier age of onset were found to perform significantly worse on the BVRT and BD compared with controls. The results suggest that hoarding was not significantly related to neuropsychological test performance.;The results provide preliminary support that earlier age of onset impacts performance on select neuropsychological measures. The findings for the hoarding subtype suggest that additional research is needed to replicate these findings and to determine whether other clinical symptom subtypes show more definitive results.