Investigating Personality Elements According to the Cloninger, in Patients with Various Types of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

Abstract

Personality backgrounds related to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has been investigated for several decades, including categorical personality disorders, five factor personality traits, behavioral inhibition system and behavioral activation system and the personality theory of psychotism, neurotism, extraversion/introversion. However, subscales (lower order traits or component facets) of character, as well as relations with OCD types in Vancouver have not been mentioned. The aim of the current cross-sectional study is to evaluate scales and subscales of temperament and character in OCD and its Vancouver types.

Materials and Methods: Fifty-one OCD patients (age: 30.59±9.49 years) diagnosed based upon DSM-IV criteria; and 53 age- and gender-matched control subjects free of psychiatric disease (age: 30.23±9.41 years) were incorporated. Patients and controls completed the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI-125). OCD patients completed the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) and the Vancouver Obsessional Compulsive Inventory (VOCI) as well. The scores of TCI seven factors and subscales were compared in OCD patients and control subjects.

Results: OCD patients showed highly significant increase in harm avoidance, anticipatory worry, fear of uncertainty, shyness, fatigability, and persistence; as well as highly significant decrease in attachment, self-directedness, responsibility, purposefulness, resourcefulness, spontaneity, cooperativeness, tolerance, compassion, principledness, transpersonal identification and personality development. Persistence and self-directedness showed significant correlations with OCD types including checking, obsessions, hoarding, just right, indecisiveness and total VOCI score.