Comorbidity of schizophrenia with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and/or obsessive/compulsive symptoms (OC): a mini-review.

Introduction: Schizophrenia has a heterogeneous clinical manifestation. The delimitation of its symptomatology is further complicated by the comorbidity with other psychiatric conditions, of which obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms are particularly common. Objective: This work aims to describe the co-existence of OCD/OC symptoms in patients with schizophrenia through a bibliographic review. Materials and methods: Pubmed was used as the principal database for searching articles. Inclusion criteria were (a) publication date (2007-2017), (b) article type (RCTs, test trials and pilot studies), (c) articles in English, (d) keywords in either the title or the abstract of the article. The search took place from February to April 2017. Results: A total of 6 articles were identified and included in the analysis. The results showed that the comorbidity of schizophrenia and OCD or OC symptoms is between 4% to 31.3%, while in two of the six studies, the corresponding percentages ranged between 10-12%, thus confirming the arithmetic fluctuation presented in the bibliography. There were no repeatable differences due to demographic characteristics between individuals with schizophrenia and schizophrenia/OCD or OC symptoms. Conclusions: There exists a relationship between schizophrenia and OCD/OC symptoms but this remains to be clarified and described in more detail. Large-scale studies are needed to elucidate whether these constitute two independent conditions or OCD/OC symptoms are a prelude for the appearance of schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]