Do you think OCD still remains underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed in general medical practice?
I certainly do think so, and I think one of the reasons OCD is underdiagnosed is that many patients think that these thoughts are bizarre or crazy and try to resist having them; as a result, they experience a lot of shame and humiliation, and they may not tell other people about the thoughts. They may not tell their mental health practitioners either. So I do think that clinicians really need to screen for these things systematically. Once clinicians start to ask routine screening questions, they will pick up on OCD more frequently. OCD is often comorbid with other conditions, other anxiety or mood-related disorders, certainly other OCD spectrum disorders, and other conditions, such as ADHD or bipolar disorder; when patients come in, sometimes they present with one of these comorbid conditions and, again, clinicians need to screen for OCD to pick it up. Also, we think that the same basic phenomena may be playing an important role across these other obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorde
