Theory of mind skills in adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder

Abstract

Objective: The aim of study is to examine whether there is a deficit about Theory of Mind (ToM) skills of adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) compared to ythe psychiatrically healthy controls and to examine the association between ToM deficit and variables such as OCD severity.Methods: The study included 30 adolescents between 12 to 16 years old who were diagnosed with OCD according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth edition (DSM-5) and 30 adolescents without any psychiatric diagnoses. Sociodemographic characteristics of the participants were collected with a form; in addition, neuropsychological tests were administered to examine development of intelligence and ToM skills. Turkish version of Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia for School-Age-Children Present and lifetime version, Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, Children's Depression Inventory, and Childhood Anxiety Screening Scale were administered. Intelligence level of patients were assessed with Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised; while ToM skills were evaluated with Hinting Task Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task and false belief tasks such as Sally-Anne, Smarties, Chocolate Bar cand Ice-Cream Truck tests.Results: It was determined those adolescents with OCD tended to fail in false belief tests and that the increase in OCD symptom severity did not affect ToM test performance.Conclusions: Due to limited number of patients, our findings couldn't be generalized to all adolescents diagnosed OCD; therefore there is a need for more studies in this area.