A Cross-Sectional Study on Cognitive Errors and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorders among Young People During the Outbreak of Coronavirus Disease 2019

Given that the lockdown measures taken so as to diminish the dissemination of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to create major mental disorders such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), the present study was conducted aiming to evaluate the prevalence of OCD and cognitive errors among young people during the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019. The present study is a descriptive, cross-sectional study in which a total of 150 young people aged 13 to 19 were randomly included. Maudsley Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory Questionnaire (MOCI) and Cognitive Error Questionnaire (CEQ) were completed, and then their results were analyzed by SPSS 22 software. The results revealed that 67.3% of the subjects who were evaluated may have demonstrated OCD symptomatology. The prevalence of obsessive-compulsive disorder symptoms in women was slightly higher than in men (72.1 compared to 60.3%). Likewise, the test results indicated that there was a significant difference between obsessive-compulsive disorder symptom in men and women (p = .001). There was also a significant difference between the two groups with OCD symptoms and without OCD symptoms in all the components of cognitive errors (p = .001). To the authors’ best of knowledge, this is the first study that has evaluated OCD symptoms at the time of COVID-19 prevalence. The findings suggest the need to enhance the prevention of relapse during social restrictions as well as to develop other strategies including online consultation and digital psychiatric management.