An Open Clinical Trial of Fluoxetine in the Treatment of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Abstract

In a 9-week open label study, seven outpatients with obsessive-compulsive disorder were treated with fluoxetine, a selective inhibitor of neuronal reuptake of serotonin. After a 7-day placebo washout period, patients were given a dose of 40 mg/day, which was gradually increased to a maximum of 80 mg/day. A significant improvement was found in the symptomatology of patients as measured on the obsessive-compulsive subscale of the Comprehensive Psychopathological Rating Scale (p < 0.001) and the Clinical Global Impression of severity of illness (p < 0.01). These findings support the hypothesis that serotonergic antidepressants may be useful in the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder and underline the need to carry out double-blind clinical trials to confirm these results.