Do obsessional beliefs discriminate OCD without tic patients from OCD with tic and Touretteʹs syndrome patients?

There is considerable overlap in symptomatology between Touretteʹs syndrome (TS) and obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). Increased rates of tics are found in OCD and up to 60% obsessive–compulsive symptoms in TS. However, in OCD obsessive–compulsive symptoms are more often anxiety-related and, as a consequence, aimed at anxiety-reduction, whereas in TS these symptoms are more stimulus-bound. Therefore, it is of clinical interest to study whether these phenomenological differences are reflected in differences between dysfunctional cognitions accompanying OC symptoms in OCD with or without tics and TS. Current cognitive theory of OCD ascertains that specific dysfunctional beliefs are important in the etiology and maintenance of OCD. To assess these beliefs, the obsessive–compulsive beliefs questionnaire-87 (OBQ-87) has been developed. In the present study, OBQ-87 scores of OCD patients without tics, OCD with tics, and TS (without OCD) patients were compared to those of normal controls.