Prevalence of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and its relationship with anxiety symptoms in students of Zanjan universities (2009)

Background: Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is the fourth most common mental disorder that can adversely affect the people’s life. University education is a stressful time for almost all students and many newly-accepted students are at the risk of periodical OCD. In this study, the prevalence of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and its relationship with anxiety symptoms was investigated in students of Zanjan universities.       

Method: The students were analyzed by a questionnaire, including the demographic information, Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale and Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale.The acquired data were analyzed by SPSS software using Chi-square Test.

Results: 61.2% of the students (738) were affected by Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) symptoms and 25.1% of them (302) were affected by anxiety symptoms (mild to severe). Prevalence of Clinical OCD among the students was estimated 22.2 % (268) .The results of statistical analysis showed significant correlations between Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and anxiety symptoms (P=0.0005), sex (P=0.0005) , age (P=0.005) and university (P= 0.002)    

Conclusion: This study demonstrated a higher prevalence of OCD among the study sample compared to the similar studies performed in Iran as well as other countries