Prevalence of Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms, Symptom Presentation, and Exploration of Clinical Correlates in Japanese College Students

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

While well characterized in Western populations, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) and its symptoms have received limited investigation among Eastern populations in comparison. This study examined symptom prevalence and clinical correlates of OCD symptoms across 400 Japanese college students using the obsessive-compulsive inventory revised (OCI-R)–an evidence-based self-report OCD assessment. A randomly selected subset of participants with elevated (n = 73) and non-elevated (n = 67) obsessive-compulsive symptoms completed follow-up assessments characterizing OCD symptom severity, anxiety, depression, stress, emotion regulation, and quality of life. Nearly half of 400 surveyed participants (46.5%) had clinically elevated OCD symptoms on the OCI-R. Elevated OCD symptom participants were found to have OCD symptoms that were mild to moderate in severity with around 4.3% of the total participants with moderate OCD symptoms. Greater OCD symptom severity corresponded with higher depression, stress, and anxiety–as well as lower emotion regulation and quality of life. Findings highlight the common prevalence of obsessive-compulsive symptoms and identify the significant effect that obsessive-compulsive symptoms have upon individuals who experience them. While future research is needed to ascertain the specific contributions of cultural factors in OCD, findings further emphasize the importance of early OCD symptom identification that can result in timely evidence-based treatment of OCD in Japanese college students.