To assess the prevalence of obsessive compulsive symptoms OCS among adolescents, the prevalence of OCD among adolescents and as a secondary aim to assess perception of social support components among adolescents with OCS and OCD.

Consent from the Directory of Ministry of Education and another consent from the General authority of Population for the questionnaire and procedures were taken. The study is a cross sectional carried on 1299 secondary school students, the sample size was chosen based on an estimated OCD prevalence of 2% in literature. Equal samples were recruited from the 3 educative zones in Alexandria Governorate. Obsessive compulsive symptoms were assessed by the Arabic version of Lyeton obsessive inventory child version LOI-CV. Students scoring above 35 were subjected to the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview for children MINI-KID Arabic version to assess psychiatric comorbidities. OCD patient students detected by MINI-KID were assessed by psychiatric interview to confirm fulfilling criteria of OCD according to DSM IV -TR criteria.Perception of social support was assessed using the the Provision and Social Relation PSR scale Arabic version.

The prevalence of obsessive compulsive symptoms was 15.5%, while that of obsessive compulsive disorder was 2.2%. As for PSR scale, score of friends and family subscales were 10.72±3.53 and 16.83±3.5 for OCD group compared to 12.87±3.04 and 18.62±3.1 for OCS group respectively. Difference for both subscales were significant at p<0.001 for friends subscale and at p<0.002 for family subscale