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Vivekananda Rachamallu [1] and Michael M. Song [2] and Haiying Liu [3] and Charles L. Giles [1] and Terry McMahon [1]
Academic Editor: Erik Jönsson
1, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Lubbock, TX, USA, ttu.edu
2, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine and Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, MD/PhD Program, Lubbock, TX, USA, ttu.edu
3, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine, Lubbock, TX, USA, ttu.edu
Received Apr 24, 2017; Revised Jul 23, 2017; Accepted Aug 24, 2017
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
1. Introduction
The cardinal features of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) include obsessions, compulsions, or both that are time-consuming and cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other areas of functioning [1]. Obsessions are repetitive, intrusive, and unwanted thoughts or images (often of sexual, religious, aggressive, or death-related nature) that cause significant anxiety and distress [2]. Compulsions or rituals are repetitive behaviors or mental acts that are performed by those with OCD, in an attempt to decrease their anxiety or distress [1]. There are many published studies reporting higher risk of suicidality in OCD patients, as well as studies describing increased risk of suicidality in OCD patients with other comorbid psychiatric conditions such as major depressive disorder (MDD) and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [3–11]. Furthermore, violent obsessions have been reported to be positively correlated with suicidality in OCD [9, 12]. However, OCD with ego-dystonic suicidal obsessions have rarely been reported [13–15]. Al-Zaben described a patient with long history of both MDD and OCD who developed suicidal obsessions [13] while Wetzler et al. described the development of OCD with suicidal obsessions in a patient with MDD, following a suicide attempt [14]. Furthermore, Wetterneck et al. described OCD with suicidal obsession in a patient with treatment-resistant OCD [15] (see Table 1). This report describes the case of a 28-year-old male, who works as a first responder, who presented with symptoms characteristic of MDD and PTSD, with no past history of OCD or suicidality, with newly developed OCD with suicidal obsessions.
Table 1
Previously published case...