Naturalistic outcome of medication-naïve obsessive compulsive disorder treated with serotonin reuptake inhibitors

• Published in: Asian journal of psychiatry 2021-06, Vol.60, p.102642-102642, Article 102642
• Main Authors: Thamby, Abel, Balachander, Srinivas, Ali, Syed Farooq, Arumugham, Shyam Sundar, TS, Jaisoorya, Narayanaswamy, Janardhanan C., Janardhan Reddy, Y.C
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Medication-naïve; Obsessive compulsive disorder; Serotonin uptake inhibitors; Treatment outcome
• ISSN: 1876-2018; 1876-2026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ajp.2021.102642

•We examined outcome in medication naïve OCD on which there is sparse data.•Time to remit is shorter in medication naïve OCD compared to medicated patients.•The outcome of medication naïve OCD appears favourable. The data on the course of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is mostly derived from studying chronic, severely ill patients with varying degree of treatment resistance. We studied the course and outcome of OCD patients who were medication-naïve at initial assessment compared to those who were medicated. We analyzed the clinical chart data of all patients with a primary diagnosis of OCD attending a speciality OCD clinic in India during a specified period and compared outcome between medication-naïve (n = 75) and medicated (n = 117) patients. The mean time to remission was shorter in the medication-naïve [18.99 months (95 % CI: 14.61–23.37)] compared to medicated [33.91 months (95 % CI: 27.55–40.28)] patients. The survival distribution of the two groups was significantly different as per the log-rank test (χ2 = 5.76, p = 0.02). In the Cox proportional hazards regression, medication-naïve status predicted time to remission. Overall, the rate of remission was the same in both groups (57 %). Medication-naïve OCD patients seem to remit faster than the previously treated patients. Future prospective naturalistic studies can compare the outcome of medication naïve OCD patients treated with medications and CBT.