Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Screening Questionnaire
It only takes a few minutes to complete a simple obsessive-compulsive disorder screening questionnaire to preliminarily predict whether an individual has obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The National Institute of Health and Clinical Optimization (NICE) suggests that when some obsessive-compulsive symptoms cause great pain to the individual or significantly affect the quality of life of the individual, the following questions can be used to assist in clinical diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder:
(1) Do you clean or clean too much?
(2) Do you check things too much?
(3) Are you troubled by some troubling thoughts but unable to get rid of them?
(4) Do you need a long time to complete some of your daily activities?
(5) Are you worried that some things need to be done in a specific order or in a specific mode, or are you worried about some dirty things?
(6) Have the above questions upset you?
If one of the above problems is definitely confirmed, Then the next more formal diagnostic process should be carried out. Obsessive-compulsive concepts and behaviors must be limited in time, for example, for more than one hour in a day, or these obsessive-compulsive concepts or behaviors cause great pain or functional impairment to the individual. Obsessive-compulsive symptoms need to conform to five characteristics of clinical manifestations:
(1) Obsessive-compulsive concepts and/or obsessive-compulsive behaviors are manifested in most days.
(2) Obsessive-compulsive concepts (invasive concepts, appearances, or doubts) are manifested as repetition, persistence, reluctance, and cause great pain to most patients.
(3) Compulsive behavior is manifested as repeated behavior or compulsive behavior caused by compulsive concept.
(4) Anti-obsessive-compulsive usually exists (even if some patients have low anti-obsessive-compulsive intensity).
(5) Compulsive behavior itself is unpleasant, but it can relieve inner anxiety and pain.
Some patients do not realize that they are obsessive-compulsive disorder patients, Or due to the stigma caused by obsessive-compulsive disorder, you may see a doctor for some skin symptoms (excessive cleaning), genital or anal symptoms (excessive cleaning or examination), common stress events (e.g. Losing your job due to frequent lateness due to some obsessive-compulsive slow behaviors) or suspecting that you are infected with HIV.
Obsessive-compulsive disorder is often not easy to find, because patients think that some of their invasive ideas or appearances are too shameful (for example, seeing or seeing bus No 4 will immediately associate them with dead ends; Or when patients see the opposite sex, their brains will flash obscene images of men and women, making them miserable.) Patients often refuse to disclose these specific contents to doctors for fear of being misunderstood or reported to social service departments.
When obsessive-compulsive disorder patients feel [comfortable] or [just right] in their hearts, when their obsessive-compulsive concept is relieved, they can stop the repeated obsessive-compulsive behavior. Over time, it will take more time to relieve or cannot be relieved. Therefore, the most important thing to understand and understand obsessive-compulsive disorder is not their behavior, but why such behavior occurs.
Avoidance behavior is an important component of obsessive-compulsive disorder. Patients often avoid the appearance of obsessive-compulsive thinking that can stimulate annoying. For example, patients who are afraid of dirt often avoid going to dirty public places, such as avoiding using public toilets, or avoiding touching toilet seats, door handles, or water gantry used by others. Hide all sharp objects or knives; If you are worried about becoming a paedophile, you will ensure that you will not be alone with children or inhibit the idea of having sex with children in your mind.
At the same time, anxiety is also related to emotional problems of obsessive-compulsive disorder, such as disgust (especially fear of dirt), shame (especially accompanied by some taboo thoughts, such as sexual or paedophile ideas), and pain.
Identify the following diseases
1. Hoarding
The hoarder is also known as the hoarder, It is considered to be a manifestation of obsessive-compulsive behavior in obsessive-compulsive disorder. Hoarding is the excessive purchase or collection of items, even if these items are worthless or dangerous, and greatly affect daily life, causing certain pain and pressure. However, hoarding is different from obsessive-compulsive disorder. At present, some psychologists believe that hoarding patients are more likely to avoid what they have to make decisions than obsessive-compulsive disorder.
Current research believes that hoarding hesitation is related to the activity of brain neural circuits and should be distinguished from obsessive-compulsive disorder.
2. Phobia
Obsessive-compulsive disorder also needs to be distinguished from phobia, People with phobias also feel unable to control themselves, I feel that some of my avoidance behaviors are meaningless like obsessive-compulsive disorder, but phobia worries about objective things outside, not obsessive-compulsive symptoms, and there is no anti-obsessive-compulsive disorder. In addition, phobia has objective objects. After completely avoiding the fear objects, its anxiety and fear will disappear completely, while obsessive-compulsive disorder fears a possibility.
3. Schizophrenia
It is also necessary to identify with schizophrenia. Schizophrenia patients will also suffer from obsessive-compulsive symptoms, but their desire for active control is not strong, and their outstanding manifestations include lack of insight, thinking association and thinking logic disorders, hallucinations and delusions.
4. Tourette’s syndrome
Touch symptoms can be mistaken for obsessive-compulsive behavior, However, Tourette’s patients have obsessive-compulsive behavior but no obsessive-compulsive concept. However, if they respond to the behavior caused by obsessive-compulsive concept at a specific time or at a certain number of times of the day or in a specific sequence, and aim at relieving the occurrence of anxiety or injury events, this may be considered as obsessive-compulsive behavior rather than Tourette’s.
5. Autism spectrum disorders
Obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms are also common in autism spectrum disorders, However, compared with patients without autism spectrum disorders, This kind of patients are more common in repetition, hoarding, touching, slapping, self-destructive behaviors, etc., but they cannot be taken lightly, because in the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder, their excessive rigid behavior, adherence to the same pattern and rigid adherence to the same order of doing things, and their language and behavior have ritualized patterns.
These are easily confused with obsessive-compulsive disorder, However, there is no anti-obsessive-compulsive disorder phenomenon for patients with autism spectrum disorders, that is to say, patients do not try hard to get rid of these behaviors like patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder, but they cannot restrain the generation of these behaviors. For patients with autism spectrum disorders, they do not have the confrontation of these consciousness and behaviors at all.
6. Organic Brain Diseases
In rare cases, obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms can be caused by some organic neurological diseases, such as brain tumors, Sydenham’s chorea, Huntington’s chorea, frontotemporal dementia, complications of frontal lobe or skull base brain injury, etc.
7. PANDAS
Similarly, a type of obsessive-compulsive disorder occurring in children is also rare. It is called [pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcal infection] (PANDAS: bear syndrome). It is an acute attack of obsessive-compulsive disorder caused by streptococcal infection in children, which may be mediated by autoimmune antibodies in basal ganglia after streptococcal infection.
8. Other
Finally, common obsessive-compulsive concepts and behaviors also need to be distinguished from some impulsive behaviors, such as shopping, gambling or sexual abnormalities related to direct satisfaction.
The author of this article [Doctor Renxin 1993] originated from Clove Garden and was slightly abridged.