The high prevalence of impulse control behaviors in patients with early-onset Parkinson's disease: A cross-sectional multicenter study

• High prevalence of impulse control behaviors in early onset Parkinson's disease
• Dopamine agonist treatment increases the risk of developing impulse control behaviors.
• Patients with impulse control disorders have worse quality of life.

IntroductionIn Parkinson's disease patients, impulse control disorders (ICDs) have been associated with younger age and early disease onset, yet the prevalence of ICDs in early-onset Parkinson's disease (EOPD) patients has yet to be studied. Thus, we set out to compare the prevalence of impulse control behaviors (ICBs) in a cohort of EOPD patients with that in age and gender matched healthy controls (HCs), as well as to analyze the association of these symptoms with the use of dopaminergic drugs and other clinical or demographic factors.MethodsA cross-sectional, multicenter study was carried out on patients recruited from outpatient Movement Disorder Clinics, assessing ICBs using the short form of the Questionnaire for Impulsive-Compulsive Disorders in Parkinson's Disease (QUIP). In addition, depression and quality of life (QoL) were measured, along with other demographic and clinical variables.ResultsOf the 87 EOPD patients, 49 (58.3%) displayed an ICB, as did 28 of the 87 HCs (32.9%; p = 0.001). Most of the EOPD patients that displayed an ICB (91.8%) were medicated with a dopamine agonist (DA) and accordingly, DA treatment was associated with a 7-fold increased risk of developing an ICB. Patients with ICBs had a higher depression score and a worse QoL.ConclusionsICBs are much more prevalent in EOPD patients than in HCs and they are associated with DA intake, depression and a worse QoL.