Covid-19 outbreak: A challenge calling for early intervention on contamination obsessive fears?

The present Covid-19 outbreak is an international public health emergency that has imposed to people strict mobility/activity restrictions and changes in the hygiene habits, essential to limit/delay virus diffusion. Early identification of and intervention on contamination obsessive fear, a core symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), are always of paramount importance, and in critical periods, such as the present one, should be imperative. OCD is generally associated with a delay in the correct diagnosis and first professional management of several years after symptom onset. A longer duration of untreated illness is in turn associated with a worst prognosis, higher treatment resistance and other clinical complications, as well as increased societal costs. It seems to be crucial to promote research efforts devoted to the early identification of subgroups at risk of developing clinically relevant contamination symptoms, to understand more deeply the vulnerability and protective mechanisms involved in this pathophysiological process in order to plan evidence-based early intervention strategies. © 2019, Giunti O.S. Organizzazioni Speciali. All rights reserved.