Sociodemographic and Quality of Life of Patients with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: A Comparison within Saudi Arabia’s Population

Background: Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a chronic and disabling condition that negatively affects quality of life (QoL) of patients with this disorder attributable to sociodemographic, clinical and illness-specific factors. However, findings vary across studies that have explored sociodemographic and QoL of patients with OCD compared to control group or patients with other mental disorders.

Objective: This cross-sectional study aimed to analyze the sociodemographic and comparatively assess QoL of patients with OCD and community dwellers with no diagnosis of OCD.

Method: Sixty patients with diagnosed OCD and seventy six people without OCD were selected from different clinical and community settings, respectively. A semi-structured proforma was used for the collection of sociodemographic variables and World Health Organization QOL-BREF (WHOQOL-BREF) scale for the assessment of the subjective QoL of both groups.

Results: Male gender, lower education and unemployment were significantly associated with OCD and scores related to physical, psychological, social and environmental domains of WHOQOL-BREF were significantly lower in OCD group compared to control population. All grades of satisfaction levels differ significantly between sub-items of 3 domains of QoL of OCD group when compared to community dwellers but environmental domain sub-items did not differ between the two groups. The OCD group was not significantly dissatisfied across all four QoL domains when compared to control group.

Conclusion: The preliminary results of this study are partially comparable to international data on QoL of patients with OCD and call for a research with a larger sample in Saudi Arabia’s community setting.