Development of personality disorders in children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder. A 6- to 22-year follow-up study.

Forty-seven people with admissions in childhood for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and 49 child psychiatric controls were followed up in young adulthood and assessed for DSM-III-R personality disorders with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R Personality Disorders. The number of personality disorders in OCD patients did not differ significantly from the number in controls. The most common personality disorder was avoidant personality disorder (significantly more frequent than in controls), whereas obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD) was not found more often in the OCD group. Subjects with OCD in adulthood seemed to have OCPD more often than childhood OCD patients with no OCD at follow-up. In the whole group, histrionic personality disorders were more common in women than in men and OCPD more common in men than in women, whereas borderline personality disorder was most common among women in the OCD group. The presence of a personality disorder in adulthood could not be correlated with such childhood factors as social background, symptoms or age of onset of OCD.