Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a prevalent and disabling condition with frequent chronic course. Staging models applied to psychiatric disorders seek to define their extent of progression at a particular time-point and differentiate early, milder clinical phenomena from those characterizing illness progression and chronicity. In OCD patients, a staging model has been recently proposed but not tested yet. This was the aim of the present study.

From an overall sample of 198 OCD patients, recruited across two psychiatric clinics in Northern Italy, 70 patients on stable treatment completed a follow-up assessment ranging from 12 to 24 months. At follow-up initiation, patients had been divided into four staging groups, according to the model proposed by Fontenelle and Yucel. At the end of the follow-up, patients were subdivided into three groups (no stage change, improved stage, or worsened stage) compared with statistical analyses.

At the end of the follow-up, 67.1% patients showed no stage changes, 24.3% a stage improvement, and 8.6% a stage progression. Worsened patients showed higher rates of comorbid disorders and higher rates of unfavorable employment characteristics compared to the other subgroups (P < .05). Patients with worsened stage showed higher prevalence of somatic obsessions (P < .05), while patients with improved stage showed higher rates of magical thinking and violence/harm obsessions compared to other groups (P < .05).

The present results provide epidemiologic and clinical correlates of the first application of a staging model in a sample of OCD patients, encouraging further studies to assess the utility of this approach in the field.

强迫症 (OCD) 是一种常见的致残疾病，具有频繁的慢性病程。应用于精神疾病的分期模型旨在确定其在特定时间点的进展程度，并将早期、较温和的临床现象与表征疾病进展和慢性的临床现象区分开来。在强迫症患者中，最近提出了一种分期模型，但尚未测试。这是本研究的目的。

从意大利北部两家精神病诊所招募的 198 名强迫症患者的总体样本中，70 名接受稳定治疗的患者完成了 12 至 24 个月的随访评估。根据 Fontenelle 和 Yucel 提出的模型，在随访开始时，患者被分为四个分期组。随访结束时，将患者分为三组（无阶段变化、改善阶段或恶化阶段）并进行统计分析。

随访结束时，67.1% 的患者没有分期变化，24.3% 的患者出现分期改善，8.6% 的患者出现分期进展。与其他亚组相比，病情恶化的患者出现更高的合并症发生率和不利的就业特征发生率更高（P  < .05）。与其他组相比，阶段恶化的患者表现出更高的躯体强迫观念（P  < .05），而改善阶段的患者表现出更高的魔法思维和暴力/伤害强迫观念（P  < .05）。

目前的结果提供了在强迫症患者样本中首次应用分期模型的流行病学和临床相关性，鼓励进一步研究以评估该方法在该领域的效用。