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BIBTEX RIS

Latency to treatment seeking in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder: Results from a large multicenter clinical sample

2022; Elsevier BV; Volume: 312; Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.psychres.2022.114567

1872-7123

Daniel L. Costa, Adriano Polpo, Carlos Alberto de Bragança Pereira, Albina Rodrigues Torres, Allan Christiano dos Santos, Guaraci Requena, Ygor Arzeno Ferrão, Maria Conceição do Rosário, Eurípedes C. Miguel, H. Blair Simpson, Roseli Gedanke Shavitt, Juliana Belo Diniz,

Autism Spectrum Disorder Research

This study aimed to identify the factors associated with a delay in treatment-seeking among patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a disabling neuropsychiatric disorder. To achieve this purpose, we conducted a cross-sectional study examining latency to treatment (LTT) and its associated correlates in 863 patients with OCD. We defined LTT as the time lag between the awareness of discomfort and/or impairment caused by symptoms and the beginning of OCD-specific treatment. To determine the socio-demographic and clinical characteristics associated with LTT, we built an interval-censored survival model to simultaneously assess the relationship between all variables, representing the best fit to our data format. The results of our study showed that approximately one-third of OCD patients sought treatment within two years of symptom awareness, one-third between two and nine years, and one-third after ten or more years. Median LTT was 4.0 years (mean = 7.96, SD = 9.54). Longer LTT was associated with older age, early onset of OCD symptoms, presence of contamination/cleaning symptoms and full-time employment. Shorter LTT was associated with the presence of aggression symptoms and comorbidity with hypochondriasis. The results of our study confirm the understanding that LTT in OCD is influenced by several interdependent variables - some of which are modifiable. Strategies for reducing LTT should focus on older patients, who work in a full-time job, and on individuals with early onset of OCD and contamination/cleaning symptoms.