Citation

Storch EA. J. Clin. Psychiatry 2015; 76(6): e820-e821.

Affiliation

Department of Pediatrics, University of South Florida, Box 7523, 880 6th St South, St Petersburg, FL 33701 estorch@health.usf.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Physicians Postgraduate Press)

DOI

10.4088/JCP.14com09430

PMID

26132693

Abstract

Glazier and colleagues describe the considerable difficulty exhibited by nonpsychiatrist physicians in correctly identifying obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) caseness and show that misidentification was associated with treatment recommendations that were not evidence based. While disconcerting, the findings are not particularly surprising and are suggestive of significant gaps in mental health training and care that, while specific to OCD in this report, most likely transcend to other psychiatric disorders. Rates of OCD misdiagnosis by nonpsychiatrist physicians, especially for less well-advertised symptoms (eg, sexual or aggressive obsessions), were startling and may reflect limited breadth of medical school/residency training curricula and continuing education in psychiatry.

Language: en