frequency of obsessive-compulsive disorder and its patterns in families of children with ocd in rafsanjan, 2016

Background: obsessive-compulsive disorder (ocd) is one of the common psychiatric disorders among children and adolescents that can be created by both genetic and environmental factors. objective: the present study aimed to evaluate the frequency of ocd and its patterns in families with ocd children. methods: in this cross-sectional study, 95 children and adolescents with ocd who were referred to the psychology clinic of rafsanjan, iran, in 2016 were enrolled by a convenience sampling method. the research tool was an obsessive-compulsive questionnaire (children form), and interviews were also carried out with the patients to find the deterioration of the symptoms in them and/or their families. data were presented and analyzed by mean ± sd, frequency, and chi-square test. the level of significance was 0.05. results: the highest frequency of ocd patterns was washing, checking, and doubt. 36.7% of fathers and 56.1% of mothers had one of obsessive-compulsive disorder patterns. meanwhile, the most common pattern observed in the parents was cleaning. in total, 79.6% of the paternal families and 87.7% of the maternal families of the patients had ocd. moreover, a significant relationship was observed in the levels of ocd between children and mothers (p = 0.027), whereas no significant association was detected between the ocd of children and that of their parents. conclusions: family history (especially maternal family) plays a significant role in ocd development, which is indicative of the transmission pattern of multifactorial traits, while the heritability of ocd is still not determined.