User:Eefs-mk/Obsessive–compulsive disorder

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Formal diagnosis may be performed by a psychologist, psychiatrist, clinical social worker, or other licensed mental health professional. OCD, like other mental and behavioral health disorders, cannot be diagnosed by a medical exam. Nor are there any medical exams that can predict if one will fall victim to such illnesses.

To be diagnosed with OCD, a person must have obsessions, compulsions, or both, according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). The DSM notes that there are multiple characteristics that can turn obsessions and compulsions from normalized behavior to "clinically significant". There has to be recurring and strong thoughts or impulsive that intrude on the day to day lives of the patients and cause noticeable levels of anxiousness.

The Quick Reference to the 2000 edition of the DSM states that several features characterize clinically significant obsessions and compulsions, and that such obsessions are recurrent and persistent thoughts, impulses, or images that are experienced as intrusive, and that cause marked anxiety or distress. These thoughts, impulses, or images are of a degree or type that lies outside the normal range of worries about conventional problems. A person may attempt to ignore or suppress such obsessions, or to neutralize them with some other thought or action, and will tend to recognize the obsessions as idiosyncratic or irrational.

Compulsions become clinically significant when a person feels driven to perform them in response to an obsession, or according to rules that must be applied rigidly, and when the person consequently feels or causes significant distress. Therefore, while many people who do not have OCD may perform actions often associated with OCD (such as ordering items in a pantry by height), the distinction with clinically significant OCD lies in the fact that the person with OCD must perform these actions to avoid significant psychological distress. These behaviors or mental acts are aimed at preventing or reducing distress or preventing some dreaded event or situation; however, these activities are not logically or practically connected to the issue, or, they are excessive. In addition, at some point during the course of the disorder, the individual must realize that his or her obsessions or compulsions are unreasonable or excessive.[citation needed] It is important to note that while the compulsions may temporarily provide a sense of relief from the anxiety, they do not temper the anxiety or obsession over time.

Moreover, the obsessions or compulsions must be time-consuming, often taking up more than one hour per day, or cause impairment in social, occupational, or scholastic functioning. It is helpful to quantify the severity of symptoms and impairment before and during treatment for OCD. In addition to the person's estimate of the time spent each day harboring obsessive-compulsive thoughts or behaviors, concrete tools can be used to gauge the person's condition. This may be done with rating scales, such as the Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS; expert rating) or the obsessive-compulsive inventory (OCI-R; self-rating). With measurements such as these, psychiatric consultation can be more appropriately determined, as it has been standardized.

In regards to diagnosing, the health professional also looks to make sure that the signs of obsessions and compulsions are not the results of any drugs, prescription or recreational, that the patient may be taking.

There are several types of obsessive thoughts that are found commonly in those with OCD. Some of these include fear of germs, hurting loved ones, embarrassment, neatness, societally unacceptable sexual thoughts etc..

Within OCD, these specific categories are often diagnosed into their own type of OCD.

OCD is sometimes placed in a group of disorders called the obsessive–compulsive spectrum.

Another criteria in the DSM is that a person's mental illness does not fit one of the other categories of a mental disorder better. That is to say, if the obsessions and compulsions of a patient could be better described by trichotillomania, it would not be diagnosed as OCD. That being said, OCD does often go hand in hand with other mental disorders. For this reason, one may be diagnosed with multiple mental disorders at once or even multiple types of OCD at once

A different aspect of the diagnoses is the degree of insight had by the individual in regards to the truth of the obsessions. There are three levels, good/fair, poor or absent/delusional. Good/fair indicated that the patient is aware that the obsessions they have are not true or probably not true. Poor indicates that the patient believes their obsessional beliefs are probably true. Absent/delusional indicates that they fully believe their obsessional thoughts to be true. Approximately 4% or fewer individuals with OCD will be diagnosed as absent/delusional. Additionally, as many as 30% of those with OCD also have a lifetime tic disorder, meaning they have been diagnosed with a tic disorder at some point in their life.

There are several different types of tics that have been observed in individuals with OCD. These include but are not limited to, "grunting", "jerking" or "shrugging" body parts, sniffling, and excessive blinking.