Study of attention in children and adolescents with obsessive compulsive disorder their first-degree relatives and healthy controls

Pages: 1260-1262
Madhumita Bhattacharyya and Vinod Kumar Sinha (Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi)
Masroor Jahan (Ranchi Institute of Neuropsychiatry and Allied Sciences, Ranchi)

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a common, heritable and disabling neuropsychiatric disorder. Evidence from cognitive and neuroimaging studies (functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and positron emission tomography (PET)) have generally been taken to be supportive of these theoretical models; however, results from these studies have not been entirely congruent with each other. Attempts have been made to delineate genetic contributions in OCDwith an ongoing search for neurocognitive endophenotypesbut have met with limited success. In this study, we attempted to study and compare the attentional property of patients with OCD, their first-degree relatives (FDRs) and healthy controls. A cross-sectional design study was carried out with eight patients (age 11-16 yrs.), their eight siblings and eight age matched healthy controls who were screened using GHQ-12. As part of this assessment, we administered Stroop Colour Word Test on affected children and adolescents with OCD, their non-affected siblings and normal control. SPSS version 20.0 was used for data analysis. The patients with OCD performed worse than their FDRs as well as from the normal control group on test assessing attention, (P > 0.01). Study revealed deficits in attention, and supported the involvement of responsibilityof fronto-striatal loop in OCD. The present study reveals attention in OCD is impaired.