Comorbid disorders are highly prevalent in patients with social anxiety disorder, occurring in as many as 90% of patients. The presence of comorbidity may affect the course of the disease in several ways such as comorbidity in patients with social anxiety disorder (SAD) is related to earlier treatment-seeking behavior, increased symptom severity, treatment resistance and decreased functioning. Moreover, comorbidities cause significant difficulties in nosology and diagnosis, and may cause treatment challenges. In this review, major psychiatric comorbidities that can be encountered over the course of SAD as well as comorbidity associated diagnostic and therapeutic challenges will be discussed.

We compared early-onset and late-onset obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) patients in terms of demographic and clinical features. One hundred sixteen outpatients whose primary diagnosis was OCD according to DSM-IV diagnostic criteria were recruited. Early-onset (n=50) and late-onset (n=66) OCD groups were compared with respect to demographic variables and scores obtained on various scales. A male gender predominance was found in early-onset OCD group. Symmetry/exactness obsessions, religious obsessions, hoarding/saving obsessions, and hoarding/collecting compulsions also were significantly more frequent in the early-onset group than in the late-onset group. The results may suggest a phenotypic difference between the two groups. Further studies are needed to investigate the differences between early-onset and late-onset OCD groups to examine the hypothesis that early-onset OCD is a distinct subtype of the disorder.

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Chronic hepatitis B and C patients presented a high rate of psychiatric disorder. HRQL was significantly decreased in patients with psychiatric morbidity.

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