Obsessive-compulsive symptoms is a common psychological phenomenon among college students. There is a wealth of cross-sectional research examining the overall development trend of obsessive-compulsive symptoms among college students, but there is a lack of research on the development trajectory of obsessive-compulsive symptoms among college students.

To investigate the development trajectory and influencing factors of compulsive symptoms among college students through longitudinal tracking.

The study employed a cluster random sampling method to select freshman students from Xinjiang Normal University as the research subjects, and conducted three follow-up tests using the obsessive-symptom and anxiety subscales in the Symptom Checklist 90 (SCL-90) over a period of 3 years. The first test was initiated in November 2020 (T1) , followed by the second test in March 2022 (T2) , and the third test in March 2023 (T3) . The survey results were analyzed using latent variable growth modeling.

Data analysis was conducted using 3 289 valid samples who participated in all three measurements. Among the 3 289 college students, there were 1 966 females (59.8%) , 2 352 Han nationality (71.5%) , with an average age at the first survey of (21.0±0.7) years old. The scores of anxiety subscales in the SCL-90 were (1.48±0.51) scores at T1, (1.38±0.45) scores at T2 and (1.33±0.43) scores at T3; The scores of obsessive-symptom subscales in the SCL-90 were (1.75±0.58) scores at T1, (1.66±0.55) scores at T2 and (1.53±0.53) scores at T3. Pearson correlation analysis showed that there was a positive correlation between obsessive-compulsive symptoms and anxiety in college students at each time point (P<0.05) . The unconditional linear model showed a good fit, with a significant positive intercept (P<0.001) and a significant negative slope (P<0.001) , and a negative correlation between the intercept and slope (r=-0.033, P<0.001) , indicating that the scores of compulsive symptoms among college students showed a downward trend, with a higher starting level leading to a faster rate of decline. Inclusion of gender covariates (male=0, female=1) , it was found that gender had a positive predictive effect on intercept (β=0.105, P<0.001) , but had no significant predictive effect on slope (β<0.001, P>0.05) , indicating that female college students had a higher initial level of obsessive-compulsive symptoms than male students, and there was no significant difference in decline rate. After including anxiety as a covariate, it was found that anxiety positively affected obsessive-compulsive symptoms at each time point (P<0.001) . It was also found that gender had a positive predictive effect on the slope (β=0.017, P<0.05) , but had no significant predictive effect on the intercept (β=0.012, P>0.05) , indicating that after controlling for the influence of anxiety, the decline rate of obsessive symptoms in female college students was significantly lower than that in male college students.

Obsessive-compulsive symptoms among college students decrease with the increase of grade, and a high starting level does not necessarily lead to long-term distress. Anxiety hinders the alleviation of obsessive-compulsive symptoms and influences the emergence of obsessive-compulsive symptoms in female college students and the decline rate of obsessive-compulsive symptoms in male college students to a greater extent.