Correlates of comorbid depression, anxiety and helplessness with obsessive-compulsive disorder in Chinese adolescents

Jing Sun; Zhanjiang Li; Nicholas Buys; Eric A Storch

doi:10.1016/j.jad.2014.11.004

Correlates of comorbid depression, anxiety and helplessness with obsessive-compulsive disorder in Chinese adolescents

J Affect Disord. 2015 Mar 15:174:31-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2014.11.004. Epub 2014 Nov 14.

Authors

Jing Sun¹, Zhanjiang Li², Nicholas Buys³, Eric A Storch⁴

Affiliations

¹ Griffith Health Institute and School of Medicine, Griffith University, QLD Q4222, Australia. Electronic address: j.sun@griffith.edu.au.
² Department of Clinical Psychology, Beijing Key Lab of Mental Disorders, Beijing Anding Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing 100088, China; Center of Schizophrenia, Beijing Institute for Brain Disorders, Beijing 100088, China. Electronic address: Lizhj8@ccmu.edu.cn.
³ Griffith Health Institute, Griffith University, QLD Q4222, Australia. Electronic address: n.buys@griffith.edu.au.
⁴ All Children׳s Guild Endowed Chair and Professor, Department of Pediatrics, University of South Florida, USA; Rogers Behavioral Health - Tampa Bay, Tampa, FL, USA; All Children׳s Hospital - Johns Hopkins Medicine, St. Petersburg, FL, USA. Electronic address: estorch@health.usf.edu.

PMID: 25479051
DOI: 10.1016/j.jad.2014.11.004

Abstract

Objectives: Youth with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are at risk of experiencing comorbid psychiatric conditions, such as depression and anxiety. Studies of Chinese adolescents with OCD are limited. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of depression, anxiety, and helplessness with the occurrence of OCD in Chinese adolescents.

Methods: This study consisted of two stages. The first stage used a cross-sectional design involving a stratified clustered non-clinical sample of 3174 secondary school students. A clinical interview procedure was then employed to diagnose OCD in students who had a Leyton 'yes' score of 15 or above. The second phase used a case-control study design to examine the relationship of OCD to depression, anxiety and helplessness in a matched sample of 288 adolescents with clinically diagnosed OCD and 246 students without OCD.

Results: Helplessness, depression and anxiety scores were directly associated with the probability of OCD caseness. Canonical correlation analysis indicated that the OCD correlated significantly with depression, anxiety, and helplessness. Cluster analysis further indicated that the degree of the OCD is also associated with severity of depression and anxiety, and the level of helplessness.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that depression, anxiety and helplessness are important correlates of OCD in Chinese adolescents. Future studies using longitudinal and prospective designs are required to confirm these relationships as causal.

Keywords: Anxiety; Chinese adolescents; Depression; Helplessness; Obsessive–compulsive disorders.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Adolescent Behavior*
Anxiety / epidemiology*
Anxiety Disorders / epidemiology
Asian People / psychology*
Asian People / statistics & numerical data
Case-Control Studies
China / epidemiology
Comorbidity
Cross-Sectional Studies
Depression / epidemiology*
Depressive Disorder / epidemiology
Female
Helplessness, Learned*
Humans
Interview, Psychological
Male
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / epidemiology
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / psychology*
Students / psychology
Students / statistics & numerical data