Comparison of Aripiprazole and Risperidone effectiveness in treating obsessive‐compulsive disorder in patients with bipolar disorder: Double‐blind, randomized clinical trial

BACKGROUND: Obsessive‐compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental illness with a chronic coarse and waxing and waning of symptoms. Treatment of OCD in patients with bipolar disorder (BD) remains challenging. OBJECTIVES: The present study aims to compare the safety and effectiveness of Risperidone and Aripiprazole as adjunctive therapy with valproate sodium, in treating mania, depression, and OCD in patients with comorbidity of OCD‐BD. METHODS: This research is 3 phase, double‐blind, randomized clinical trial, with a total number of 64 patients. The diagnostic psychiatrist clinical interview was based on diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th edition (DSM‐5) criteria. For assessing severity of OCD, mania, and depression, Yale−Brown obsessive‐compulsive scale (Y‐BOCS), young mania rating scale (YMRS), and Hamilton depression rating scale (HAM‐D) scores were used. Patients were randomly assigned to the two parallel groups. All patients in both group were received valproate sodium, one group was treated with Aripiprazole and the other group was treated with Risperidon as adjective therapy with valproate sodium. The SPSS software (version 22), χ (2) test, t‐test, and analysis of variance with repeated measures were used to analyze the data. RESULTS: The dosage and time of both drugs were statistically significant in reducing the mean score of all three mentioned scales, but the effect of group was not statistically significant in HAM‐D and YMRS scores, only in terms of OCD, the mean of the Y‐BOCS score was significantly lower in the Aripiprazole group (p < 0.001). In relation to side effects, Risperidone induced statistically significant weight gain (p < 0.001) and Aripiprazole induced statistically significant sleep disturbance (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Both Aripiprazole and Risperidone can be used effectively as adjunctive therapy with valproate sodium in treating OCD in patients with BD without any serious and life threatening adverse effect. Aripiprazole is more effective than Risperidone in treating OCD in BD.