ABSTRACT
Whilst obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is rarer than the other disorders considered in this volume, affecting just 1.1% of the UK population (Torres et al. 2006), with 7.4% of those attending psychiatric outpatients suffering from the disorder (Zimmerman et al. 2008), OCD sufferers have more social and work-related impairments and make more suicidal acts (Torres et al. 2006). Sufferers from OCD alone are the exception (18.8%) rather than the rule, 81.2% having at least one additional disorder (Zimmerman et al. 2008). Interestingly in a comparison of OCD sufferers with and without depression, the two predictors of depression were level of functional impairment and the tendency to misinterpret innocuous intrusive thoughts as significant (Abramowitz et al. 2007).
