Schizophrenia and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are unconnected diagnostic disorders with a high co-occurrence rate (Fabisch, Fabisch, Langs, Huber, Zapotoczky, 2001). The most commonly used treatment approach is neuroleptics in combination with anti-obsessive medications (Zohar, Kaplan, Benjamin, 1993; Reznik & Sirota, 2000; Berman, Sapers, Chang, Losonczy, Pappas, Green, 1995; Poyurovsky, Isakov, Hromnikov, Modai, Rauchberger, Schneidman, Weizman, 1999).

In July of 2014 through a grant from Pfizer, Joseph Zohar designed a study to test the effect of Ziprasidone on patients with schizophrenia and patients with both, schizophrenia and OCD (ScOCD). The antipsychotic medication Ziprasidone, is a potent antagonist, or chemical that blocks effects of a certain neurotransmitter set (Kosslyn & Rosenberg, 2012). Ziprasidone is also a reuptake inhibitor, with a reuptake inhibitor being an effect that blocks surplus neurotransmitters in the synaptic cleft from being reabsorbed back into the sending neuron (Kosslyn & Rosenberg, 2012).

The study was designed to compare response to treatment with Ziprasidone in patients with schizophrenia to the response from the same treatment in patients with ScOCD. The Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (a diagnostic exam used to determine major mental disorders) was used for diagnosis of schizophrenia and OCD during the evaluation stage prior to the study. Ratings used to measure the symptoms of both disorders were the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) a medical scale used for measuring symptom severity in schizophrenic patients, the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (YBOCS) a test to rate the severity of OCD symptoms, the Clinical Global Impressions-Severity of Illness (CGI-S) along with the Clinical Global Impressions-Improvement (CGI-I) scales (Clinical Global Impression is a rating scale used to measure symptom severity and treatment response) , and the Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) a numeric scale used to rate social, occupational, and psychological functioning (American Psychiatric Association, 2000).

The population of the study contained forty-five patients who were currently receiving treatment at the Chaim Sheba Medical Center, of whom all met the DSM-IV criteria for schizophrenia. This group consisted of only adults (aged 18-65) who had been diagnosed as schizophrenic at least six months prior to the study and have been stable on an antipsychotic medication