Life events and personality factors in children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder and other anxiety disorders
Section snippets
Subjects
Fifty-six consecutive referrals to the Anxiety Disorder Clinic at a university-affiliated hospital were included in the study. Twenty-eight subjects had a primary diagnosis of OCD and 28 had a primary diagnosis of other AD. The latter included generalized anxiety disorder in 11 patients (39%), social phobia in 10 (36%), specific phobias in six (21%), and panic disorder in one (4%). The normal control group consisted of 24 subjects recruited by advertisement from the hospital catchment area.
The
Results
The demographic and clinical characteristics of the three groups are shown on Table 1. There were no significant differences in mean age, gender distribution, socioeconomic status, and age of onset of the primary anxiety disorder. Both the OCD and other AD group showed a high comorbidity with other AD.
Our first hypothesis that children with AD (OCD and other AD) have more life events than normal controls was partially supported (Table 2). Children with OCD had significantly more total life
Discussion
Few studies have been conducted on life events in children with AD. According to our sample, the general quantitative, general qualitative, and specific qualitative theories of life events all apply. Interestingly, they seem to be more valid for patients with OCD than for those with other AD. Regarding the general quantitative and qualitative differences, total life events and negative life events (SLE) (both lifetime and 1 year prior to onset of the disorder) were significantly more common in
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