Prevalence of obsessive-compulsive disorder among high school girl students (2018-19)

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a neuropsychiatric disorder that can be time-consuming and cause considerable disruption to routine activities, occupational functioning, social activities, and relationships with others. This study aimed to determine the prevalence of obsessive-compulsive disorder among high school girl students.

This descriptive cross-sectional study was done on 342 high school female students in Amol city, northern Iran in the academic year of 2018-19. Cluster random sampling mehod was applied in this study. The Maudsley OCD Questionnaire was used for screening and the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Questionnaire was used to confirm obsessive-compulsive disorder.

98 students (28.7 %) had positive symptoms. The highest frequency was related to slowness and repetition (37 cases), followed by doubting (36 cases), repetitive checking (35 cases), cleaning (31 cases), and finally rumination (12 cases). Among the 98 screened individuals, 67 were positive based on the Yale-Brown questionnaire. Severity of the obsessive compulsive disorder was mild in 37 cases (55.2 %), moderate in 21 cases (31.34%) and severe in 9 cases (13.43%).

The prevalence of obsessive-compulsive disorder observed in one-third of high school students in the area.