OCD and Schizophrenic Tendencies: Is There A Connection?

Recent findings suggest that there may be a link between schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Previous findings have suggested that the two issues overlap with each other, revealing higher rates of coexisting illness between the two disorders in patients.

For the study, researchers examined data of e million people born between 1955 and 2006 who were followed up with from 1995 through 2012.

Throughout this time, they found that a total of 16,231 people developed schizophrenia and 447 (roughly three percent) of these people were previously diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Findings also revealed that a total of 30,556 people developed a schizophrenia spectrum disorder and 700 developed a previously diagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Furthermore, researchers found that being diagnosed with a obsessive-compulsive disorder significantly increased the risk of developing schizophrenic tendencies.

"Despite the fact that our results indicate putative overlapping etiological factors of OCD and schizophrenia or schizophrenia spectrum disorders, they do not necessarily suggest that these disorders should be aggregated into one global diagnosis," the study authors noted, in a news release. "However, give these findings and a fact that OCD and schizophrenia co-occur with one another at a higher rate than would be expected in the general population, the phenotypes of these disorders are potentially more similar that currently acknowledge."

More information regarding the findings can be seen via JAMA Psychiatry.