The following symptoms and complaints may indicate obsessive-compulsive disorder:
- Obsessive thoughts such as the danger of contamination (contamination thoughts: 50% of cases), contagion, poisoning, illness (pathological doubts: 42%; somatic obsessive fears: 33%), striving for symmetry (need for symmetry: 32%), order, etc.
- Compulsive acts – repetitive patterns of action – are motivated by the promise of relief from tension and apprehension; compulsive acts can be thematically differentiated into:
- Washing, cleaning, and grooming compulsions (washing rituals: 60%).
- Control and order compulsions (control rituals: 60%).
(Percentages)
Key features
- Unpleasant thoughts, ideas and impulses to action (intrusions) that impose themselves on the consciousness (obsessions),
- Ritualized chains of thoughts and actions (compulsions), which are mostly performed with the aim of warding off or neutralizing the aversive intrusions.
ICD-10 research criteria of obsessive-compulsive disorder
Criteria | Features |
A |
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B | Compulsive thoughts (ideas or imaginings) and compulsive actions show all of the following characteristics:
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C |
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D |
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