Level of insight in Egyptian patients having obsessive compulsive disorder: a comparative study

Background and objectives Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a chronic psychiatric disorder defined by the existence of obsessions and/or compulsive behaviors or mental acts persistently and affects around 1-3% of the population in the world. Multiple studies demonstrated the link of the insight level to how severe was OCD and existence of resistance to both medications and psychotherapy in individuals with OCD. Studying the characteristics associated with poor insight is very important for management of treatment-resistant OCD and development of new therapeutic approaches. The purpose of this work was to assess the level of the insight in Egyptian patients with OCD, identify clinical correlates that could anticipate the degree of insight, and assess the validity and reliability of brown assessment of belief scale after being translated to Arabic version.Methods A comparative cross-sectional study of 96 individuals (male and female aged from 18 to 60) diagnosed with OCD based on the Arabic version of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis I Disorders (SCID-I). The study excluded any individuals with any coexisting neuro-psychiatric conditions and a history of major medical disease. Severity of OCD was assessed through the Arabic version of the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (YBOCS). Subsequently, participants performed the Brown Assessment of Beliefs Scale (BABS) after being translated into Arabic and assessed for reliability, validity and applicability of the translated form.Results Patients with OCD presented with poor insight were associated with more untreated time interval, longer disease duration and more severity that was dramatically differed (p <= 0.05, <= 0.001, <= 0.05 respectively). Also, there was a substantial notable correlation among BABS and YBOCS obsession, compulsion, and total score.Conclusions The existence of good insight in patients diagnosed with OCD was associated with lower severity and less duration of illness compared to patients with poor insight. Also, the more time waited before the intervention the worst the patient scores on the insight scale.