Sensory Integration Capacity is Diminished in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Patients with Poor Insight But Not in Patients with Intact Insight

Aims: The aim of the present study was to assess sensory integration ability of OCD patients with poor and good insight using a Haptic Test for adults.

Study Design: Experimental design.

Place and Duration of Study: Department of Psychiatry, University of Leipzig, between October 2010 and Mai 2013

Methodology: Results of 23 OCD out patients (7 poor insight, 16 good insight) and 23 healthy control subjects, matched for age and sex were compared. Visual-haptic integration was measured using the Haptic Figures Test (HFT).

Results: The analysis showed significant differences between the groups in their number of errors (F (2,43) = 4.68, p<.05) and mean total exploration time (F (2,43) = 9.00, p<.005). Post hoc analyses revealed that OCD patients with poor insight made significantly more mistakes and used longer exploration times than OCD patients with good insight and healthy adults.

Conclusion: The results are indicative of the necessity to use differentiated analyses and group comparisons of patients with OCD. The striking results of OCD patients with poor insight may indicate a deficit in sensory integration especially for this subgroup.