Comparing verbal and nonverbal memory in posttraumatic stress disorder with obsessive compulsive disorder

Background: There is growing evidence for neuropsychology dysfunction in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Moreover, the phenomenological, etiological and neurological relationship between these two disorders lead to raising this question whether there is any difference in PTSD and OCD patient’s performance on verbal and nonverbal memory.

Methods: Twenty individuals with PTSD, 15 subjects with OCD, and 17 normal subjects participated in this study. All subjects were matched by age, sex, and socio-economic status. Patient groups were recruited from different hospitals and clinics in Tehran. The instruments consisted of Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM (SCID), Beck depression inventory (BDI-II), Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (YBOCS), Impact of Event Scale Revised (IES-R), Wechsler memory scale third edition (WMS-III) and Rey–Osterrieth Complex Figure Test (RCFT). To analyze the data, one-way ANOVA, Multivariate Covariate, Univariate Covariate and Bonforroni Post-hoc Comparison were used.

Results: PTSD patients had a weaker performance in all comparisons and the performance of OCD patients in non-verbal memory was lower than control group.

Conclusion: It seems that PTSD patients represented such a performance due to the effect of symptom intensity of this disorder, chronic illness and also differences in neuropsychology system.