TY - JOUR
T1 - Impact of comorbid depressive symptoms on neuropsychological performance in obsessive-compulsive disorder
AU - Moritz, S.
AU - Birkner, C.
AU - Kloss, M.
AU - Jacobsen, D.
AU - Fricke, F.
AU - Böthern, A.
AU - Hand, I.
PY - 2001
Y1 - 2001
N2 - There is indirect evidence from previous research that several executive disturbances in obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD) are mediated by comorbid depressive symptoms. For the present study, the authors investigated whether OCD patients with elevated Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD; M. Hamilton, 1967) scores would exhibit deficits in tasks sensitive to the medial and dorsolateral frontal cortex as well as other executive tasks. The 36 OCD patients were split along the median according to their HRSD scores and compared with matched control subjects. Patients with high HRSD scores performed significantly worse than control subjects and patients with low HRSD scores on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (J. Loong, 1990), the Trail-Making Test (TMT, Part B; R. M. Reitan, 1992), and the TMT difference score. Moreover, patients with high HRSD scores exhibited deficits on a (creative) verbal fluency task. It is suggested that comorbid depressive symptoms may have artificially inflated some executive deficit scores in previous studies.
AB - There is indirect evidence from previous research that several executive disturbances in obsessivecompulsive disorder (OCD) are mediated by comorbid depressive symptoms. For the present study, the authors investigated whether OCD patients with elevated Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HRSD; M. Hamilton, 1967) scores would exhibit deficits in tasks sensitive to the medial and dorsolateral frontal cortex as well as other executive tasks. The 36 OCD patients were split along the median according to their HRSD scores and compared with matched control subjects. Patients with high HRSD scores performed significantly worse than control subjects and patients with low HRSD scores on the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (J. Loong, 1990), the Trail-Making Test (TMT, Part B; R. M. Reitan, 1992), and the TMT difference score. Moreover, patients with high HRSD scores exhibited deficits on a (creative) verbal fluency task. It is suggested that comorbid depressive symptoms may have artificially inflated some executive deficit scores in previous studies.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0035156774&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1037/0021-843X.110.4.653
DO - 10.1037/0021-843X.110.4.653
M3 - Article
C2 - 11727955
AN - SCOPUS:0035156774
SN - 0021-843X
VL - 110
SP - 653
EP - 657
JO - Journal of Abnormal Psychology
JF - Journal of Abnormal Psychology
IS - 4
ER -