Videos from The Times Cheltenham Science Festival

Tools to identify people at potential risk of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and provide them with preventive treatment are being developed by doctors to help address growing rates of the debilitating condition.

Concern at the widespread failure to diagnose OCD effectively, leaving sufferers to go for years without treatment and to develop much more severe symptoms, has prompted researchers to draw up the first studies of clinical strategies to pre-empt its onset.

OCD, the anxiety-related illness associated with repetitive impulses and disturbing thoughts, is estimated to affect between 2 and 3 per cent of the UK population. It is listed among the top 10 most debilitating conditions by the World Health Organisation.

Paul Salkovskis, Professor of Clinical Psychology and Applied Science at King’s College London, told The Times that more research was needed focusing on the triggers for OCD and at-risk groups such as pregnant women and young people leaving home.

Professor Salkovskis, one of the world’s leading OCD experts and clinical director of the Maudsley Hospital Centre for Anxiety Disorders and Trauma, said he was applying for funding for a new research programme to examine prevention strategies.

“OCD is a result of a trauma to which we all have a vulnerability, but some people are more prone,” he said. “We want to target at-risk sub-groups such as pregnant women. It doesn’t look like it is related to hormones; it is actually to do with [anxiety linked to] responsibility. We are trying to protect these people who are at risk and develop key strategies to help them.”

He said that prevention and early intervention were vital, particularly as it took an average of seven years for a person to receive an accurate OCD diagnosis.Sufferers tend to experience repetitive, intrusive and unwelcome thoughts, images, impulses and doubts. These thoughts usually cause the person to perform repetitive compulsions in a vain attempt to relieve themselves of the obsessions.

Thoughts about contamination and extreme violence are well-documented symptoms, triggering obsessive cleaning and other unusual modes of behaviour, such as repeatedly tying things in knots.

The screening of large numbers of women in ante-natal clinics, with regular follow-ups, is one approach being investigated, as well as improving GP awareness of OCD symptoms.

Professor Salkovskis, who was speaking at The Times Cheltenham Science Festival, said that Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) — a psychological “talking” treatment that aims to help change the way patients think, feel and behave — remained the only robust clinical approach to address the condition.

He added that the NHS should stop wasting resources on “ethically bonkers” alternative psychotherapies such as neuro-linguistic programming. “Too much research funding is being spent on brain functioning and biological factors and it has been of no treatment benefit at all. It’s nonsense and very scary.”

Ashley Fulwood, chief executive of OCD-UK, the leading charity supporting research into the condition, said it welcomed the ground-breaking approach to OCD prevention.

“Misdiagnosis and delays in diagnosis remain a real problem because there isn’t sufficient expertise at a local level,” he said. “If we can get to the root of the initial trigger for OCD, that will improve awareness and help reduce the burden of this hugely disruptive condition.”