Are There Familial Patterns of Symptom Dimensions in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

Srinivas Balachander; Sandra Meier; Manuel Matthiesen; Furkhan Ali; Anand Jose Kannampuzha; Mahashweta Bhattacharya; Ravi Kumar Nadella; Vanteemar S Sreeraj; Dhruva Ithal; Bharath Holla; Janardhanan C Narayanaswamy; Shyam Sundar Arumugham; Sanjeev Jain; Yc Janardhan Reddy; Biju Viswanath

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2021.651196

Are There Familial Patterns of Symptom Dimensions in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder?

Front Psychiatry. 2021 Apr 20:12:651196. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2021.651196. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Srinivas Balachander^{1

2}, Sandra Meier³, Manuel Matthiesen^{3

4

5

6}, Furkhan Ali^{1

2}, Anand Jose Kannampuzha^{1

2}, Mahashweta Bhattacharya^{1

2}, Ravi Kumar Nadella², Vanteemar S Sreeraj², Dhruva Ithal², Bharath Holla², Janardhanan C Narayanaswamy^{1

2}, Shyam Sundar Arumugham¹, Sanjeev Jain², Yc Janardhan Reddy^{1

2}, Biju Viswanath²

Affiliations

¹ Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Clinic, Department of Psychiatry, National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences, Bangalore, India.
² Accelerator Program for Discovery in Brain Disorders Using Stem Cells, National Institute of Mental Health & Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS), Bangalore, India.
³ Department of Psychiatry, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada.
⁴ Department of Psychiatry Psychosomatics and Psychotherapy, University of Wuerzburg, Wuerzburg, Germany.
⁵ Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁶ Department of Biomedicine, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.

Abstract

Background: Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a heterogeneous illness, and emerging evidence suggests that different symptom dimensions may have distinct underlying neurobiological mechanisms. We aimed to look for familial patterns in the occurrence of these symptom dimensions in a sample of families with at least two individuals affected with OCD. Methods: Data from 153 families (total number of individuals diagnosed with DSM-5 OCD = 330) recruited as part of the Accelerator Program for Discovery in Brain Disorders using Stem Cells (ADBS) was used for the current analysis. Multidimensional Item Response Theory (IRT) was used to extract dimensional scores from the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (YBOCS) checklist data. Using linear mixed-effects regression models, intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC), for each symptom dimension, and within each relationship type were estimated. Results: IRT yielded a four-factor solution with Factor 1 (Sexual/Religious/Aggressive), Factor 2 (Doubts/Checking), Factor 3 (Symmetry/Arranging), and Factor 4 (Contamination/Washing). All except for Factor 1 were found to have significant ICCs, highest for Factor 3 (0.41) followed by Factor 4 (0.29) and then Factor 2 (0.27). Sex-concordant dyads were found to have higher ICC values than discordant ones, for all the symptom dimensions. No major differences in the ICC values between parent-offspring and sib-pairs were seen. Conclusions: Our findings indicate that there is a high concordance of OCD symptom dimensions within multiplex families. Symptom dimensions of OCD might thus have significant heritability. In view of this, future genetic and neurobiological studies in OCD should include symptom dimensions as a key parameter in their analyses.

Keywords: OCD; dimensions; familial; heritability; obsessive-compulsive; symptom dimensions; symptomatology.