What type of OCD is most resistant?
Research seems to indicate that some factors will make it less likely that an individual will respond well to treatment. One study that appeared in the Journal of Affective Disorders noted that some patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder experience an unsatisfactory reduction in symptom severity despite being treated with all the available treatment options. To investigate factors associated with treatment-refractory OCD, they conducted a case-control study, comparing patients with treatment-refractory OCD to patients with treatment-responding OCD. The researchers found that the factors associated with refractoriness of OCD were more severe of symptoms, chronic course of illness, lack of a partner, being unemployed, low economic status, presence of obsessive-compulsive symptoms of sexual or religious content, and greater family accommodation of the OC symptoms. However, this was but one small study, and future studies are warranted to verify these findings.
