THE EPIDEMIOLOGY AND CROSS-NATIONAL PRESENTATION OF OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER

Portions of this article were presented at the First International Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Conference, March 12–13, 1993, Capri, Italy, and at the 146th Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, May 23, 1993, San Francisco, California. Portions of this article, including tables and figures, were reproduced from Weissman MM, Bland RC, Canino GJ, et al: The cross-national epidemiology of obsessive-compulsive disorder. J Clinical Psychiatry 55[suppl 3]:5–10, 1994; with the permission of the publisher.
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Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a psychiatric illness that has been recognized and described for more than 100 years. Medical descriptions of OCD symptoms appear in the nineteenth-century writings of Esquirol and Morel. Janet described an obsessional syndrome, and Freud provided some vivid descriptions of OCD traits and behaviors. Freud and other psychoanalysts have suggested some highly interesting and provocative theories relating OCD behaviors to personality.

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Address reprint requests to Ewald Horwath, MD, MSc, New York State Psychiatric Institute, 1051 Riverside Drive, New York, NY 10032

The cross-national reanalysis was supported by a grant from the Upjohn Pharmaceutical Company, Kalamazoo, Michigan; Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Marietta, Georgia; and by grant no. PPG MH37592 from the National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland.