Frequency of Impairment of Executive Functioning among Patients having Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Obsessive-compulsive Disorder (OCD) isa highly debilitating neuropsychiatric condition with anestimated lifetime prevalence of 2-3 percent. Executivefunction refers to the ability to use high level oversightfunctions to modulate memory, sensory information,cognition, and affect as a situation evolves, and use ofstrategies that must shift to maintain performance. Impairmentof nonverbal memory has been reported in studies of patientswith OCD. The objective of present study was to determinethe frequency of impairment of executive functioning amongpatients having obsessive-compulsive disorder.Material and methods: A total of 150 patients fulfillingselection criteria were enrolled through the OutpatientsDepartment of Psychiatry, Services hospital Lahore. Aftertaking informed consent, the demographic data i.e. name, age,gender and duration of OCD were noted. All patients werescreened using the frontal lobe assessment battery (FAB) bythe researcher himself. Impaired executive functioning wascategorized as a calculated FAB score <12.Results: The study revealed that, out of 150 cases of OCD,frequency of impairment of executive functioning amongpatients was calculated as 22.67%(n=34). 65.33%(n=98)participants were between 18-30 years of age (M=30.05,S.D+5.83 years), 54.67%(n=82) were male and 45.33%(n=68)were females.Conclusion: Thus, it is concluded that executive functioningis impaired frequently among patients having obsessivecompulsive disorder. So, it is recommended that executivefunctioning should be monitored among patients who presentwith OCD. However, it is also required that every setup shouldhave their surveillance in order to know the frequency of theproblem.