The Effects of Demographic Characteristics, Memory Deficits, and Executive Functioning Impairments in Failure to Respond toFluvoxamine among Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder in Iran

Identifying treatment-response predictors could help improve treatment protocols as well as appropriately tailoring them to each subject, leading to a more desirable and accelerated recovery in patients. Thus, the present study aimed to investigate the role of demographic characteristics, memory deficits, and executive functioning impairments in failure to respond to fluvoxamine among patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).  

This 2-group design (treatment-responsive and treatment-resistant) experimental study explored 76 participants who had received fluvoxamine monotherapy for OCD for ≥6 months. The study participants were from Iran. Four data collection tools were used in this study (ie, Demographic Data Form, WMS-III, WCST, and Y-BOCS). The achieved data were analyzed in SPSS-16 by descriptive statistics, such as mean and standard deviation and frequency and percentages, as well as an independent samples t-test, a chi-square test, and a Fisher exact test at P <0.05.  

The present study findings indicated that 56 (81.2%) out of 76 patients with OCD responded to fluvoxamine treatment. A significant difference between the study groups highlighted age as an influential factor in providing a positive therapeutic response to fluvoxamine (P=0.048). However, the groups did not significantly differ in terms of gender (P=0.272), marital status (P=0.753), educational level (P=0.332), disease duration (P=0.276), and occupational status (P=0.473).While there was no significant difference between the groups (P=0.639) in terms of memory deficits (P=0.639), the response rate to fluvoxamine treatment was significantly higher in those with a healthy executive functioning, compared with patients with impairments in this respect (P=0.043).  

The obtained data suggested that fluvoxamine has a favorable efficacy in the treatment of OCD, and especially in young patients with healthy executive functioning.