ARTICLES
Obsessive-Compulsive Symptoms in Prader-Willi and “Prader-Willi—Like” Patients

https://doi.org/10.1097/00004583-199903000-00021Get rights and content
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ABSTRACT

Objective

To compare obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms in patients with Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) and symptoms in a group of patients presenting with “Prader-Willi—like” features but without the genetic abnormalities associated with PWS.

Method

16 patients aged 4 through 20 years were evaluated in a clinic specializing in the assessment and management of behavioral and food-related problems in PWS. Eight patients were found to have key features of the syndrome but did not have a PWS genotype. These PWS-like subjects were matched to 8 clinic patients with a confirmed deletion of the PWS critical region of the paternally derived chromosome 15. All subjects were evaluated for obesity, IQ. food-related problems, maladaptive behaviors, and non—food-related OC symptoms.

Results

There were no differences between the 2 groups with respect to measures of obesity, IQ, food-related difficulties, or overall maladaptive behaviors. The PWS group showed significantly greater numbers of OC symptoms and greater symptom severity.

Conclusions

Patients with PWS have elevated numbers of OC symptoms and significant symptom-related impairment which are not explained by developmental delay, food-related difficulties, or obesity. OC symptoms are part of a behavioral phenotype that accompanies deletions on the proximal long arm of chromosome 15 in PWS.

Key Words

Prader-Willi syndrome
obsessive-compulsive disorder
mental retardation
behavioral phenotypes

Cited by (0)

Presented at the 1998 meeting of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Supported in part by an Eli Lilly Pilot Research Award and NIMH Training Grant MH-19126 (Dr. State) and NICHD Program Project Grant P02-HD-03008-31 (Drs. State, Dykens, Martin). The authors thank Wayne Grody, Lori Salinas, Michael Weiner, Jan Halliday, Paul Bolita, Lisa Davis, Linda Florey, and Bill Lojkovic for their invaluable contributions to the UCLA Prader-Willi Clinic, and James Leckman, David Pauls, Gene Fisch, Anthony van den Pol, Paul Lombroso, and Walter Gilliam for their helpful comments during the preparation of this manuscript.