Normal and disordered compulsivity: evidence against a continuum

Sixteen patients with obsessive compulsive disorder and 16 mentally healthy control subjects of comparable gender, age, and educational level underwent psychometric testing with the Obsessive-Compulsive subscale of the Comprehensive Psychiatric Rating Scale, the Maudsley Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory, and the Obsessive subscale of the Lazare-Klerman-Armor (LKA) Personality Inventory. An interviewer also rated each subject as positive or negative for each of the five DSM-III elements of compulsive personality disorder. Patients scored significantly higher than controls on all measures except the Obsessive subscale of the LKA Personality Inventory, on which the controls actually scored slightly higher. The authors suggest that the failure of this last instrument to differentiate the subject groups can be interpreted as evidence against a continuum between a certain type of supposed normal personality pattern (obsessive or compulsive) and a corresponding psychopathologic state (obsessive compulsive disorder).