Background : Preliminary evidence suggests childhood maltreatment to play a causal role in the development and maintenance of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). However, both the effect of childhood maltreatment on the course of OCD treatment and the role of specific subtypes of maltreatment remain largely unknown. Objective : This study aimed to investigate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and the severity and time course of OCD symptoms within a clinical sample of OCD patients ( N = 68). We hypothesized that higher levels of childhood maltreatment in OCD patients would be associated with higher symptom severity and worse treatment outcomes. Method : Assessments of childhood maltreatment, OCD symptomatology, and related variables were completed in a sample of OCD patients before and after inpatient treatment as well as at 6 month follow-up. Results : Emotional abuse, sexual abuse and neglect were highly prevalent in our sample. Additionally, the severity of experienced childhood maltreatment was associated with higher OCD symptom severity, with the strongest association found for emotional abuse. Hierarchical linear models indicated that patients with childhood maltreatment showed higher OCD symptom severity at pre-treatment, post-treatment, and follow-up compared to patients without these experiences. However, childhood maltreatment did not moderate symptom improvement during treatment. Conclusion : Thus, although childhood maltreatment is not related to treatment outcome, it is highly prevalent among OCD patients and childhood trauma survivors still show higher OCD symptom severity after treatment. Therefore, childhood maltreatment should be considered in psychological interventions in individuals with OCD.

Today’s stressors largely arise from social interactions rather than from physical threat. However, the dominant laboratory model of emotional learning relies on physical stimuli (e.g. electric shock) whereas adequate models of social conditioning are missing, possibly due to more subtle and multilayered biobehavioral responses to such stimuli. To fill this gap, we acquired a broad set of measures during conditioning to negative social unconditioned stimuli, also taking into account long-term maintenance of conditioning and inter-individual differences. Fifty-nine healthy participants underwent a classical conditioning task with videos of actors expressing disapproving (US-neg) or neutral (US-neu) statements. Static images of the corresponding actors with a neutral facial expression served as CS+ and CS−, predicting US-neg and US-neu, respectively. Autonomic and facial-muscular measures confirmed differential unconditioned responding whereas experiential CS ratings, event-related potentials, and evoked theta oscillations confirmed differential conditioned responding. Conditioning was maintained at 1 month and 1 year follow-ups on experiential ratings, especially in individuals with elevated anxiety and depressive symptoms, documenting the efficiency of social conditioning and its clinical relevance. This novel, ecologically improved conditioning paradigm uncovered a remarkably efficient multi-layered social learning mechanism that may represent a risk factor for anxiety and depression.

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Mean age was 57.92AE15.60 years and 61.8% were male. Mean duration of follow up was 24.08AE17.91 months. Mean and median survival rate was 24.09AE0.62 and 18.24AE0.49 months, respectively. Among all comorbidities and diseases lead to end stage renal disease, only diabetes mellitus (DM) was significantly associated with poor survival rates (P¼0.036). Basal and mean of variables in live and death patients were compared in table 1.