OCD Sufferers More Likely to be Bullied

By Alex Groberman, Thu, July 21, 2011

According to a new University of Florida study, children who suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) tend to be three times as likely to get bullied as other children.

The same study indicated that in response to incessant bullying, OCD symptoms can get progressively worse.

"One of the things we have noticed working with many kids with OCD is that peer relations are extremely impaired," said Eric Storch, Ph.D, a U of Florida assistant professor of psychiatry and pediatrics. "Kids target kids who are different. Kids with OCD sometimes exhibit behaviors that peers simply don't understand."

As per the Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, more than 25 percent of children with OCD describe bullying as a constant problem or concern. On the flip side, only nine percent of healthy, non-OCD sufferers indicate that bullying plays a dramatic role in their lives.

The reason that bullying is particularly bad for OCD sufferers is because children dealing with the condition already have a more-sensitive-than-usual mental health situation that needs a supplementary delicate, not brute touch. By stressing out children who have to deal with OCD with constant never-ending bullying, conditions tend to worsen.

Researchers hope that as more information regarding the negative impacts of bullying OCD sufferers become available, schools and officials will enforce harsher punishments on bullies.

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