Symposia
Assessment
Dean McKay, ABPP, Ph.D.
Professor
Fordham University
Bronx, New York
David Rosenberg, MD
Professor
Wayne State University
Detroit, Michigan
Evelyn Stewart, MD
Professor
University of British Columbia
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Eric Storch, Ph.D.
Professor and Vice Chair of Psychology
Baylor College of Medicine
Houston, Texas
Sabine Wilhelm, Ph.D.
Professor, Chief of Psychology
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA
Heining cham, PhD
Associate Professor
Fordham University
Bronx, New York
Kennedy Anderson, MA
Doctoral Student
Sam Houston University
Huntsville, Texas
Lara Farrell, PhD
Professor
Griffith University
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
daniel Geller, MD
Associate Professor
Harvard Medical School
Boston, MA
Gregory Hanna, MD
Professor
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Sharna Mathieu, PhD
Postdoctoral Fellow
Griffith University
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
Joseph F. McGuire, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Baltimore, Maryland
Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a serious psychiatric condition with onset typically in childhood. Diagnosing the condition is often a challenge for practitioners, and available measures are demanding for youth to complete due to length. Further, frequently youth with OCD require assistance in understanding available measures, making even comparably brief measures burdensome to administer. Additionally, recent changes in assessment requirements for third party payers makes rapid evaluation of symptoms a priority in many treatment settings. In order to address the urgent need for a brief and accurate assessment, the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Children’s Version (OCI-CV) was subjected to item analysis to determine (a) a smaller set of items that are syndromally valid; and (b) the smallest set of items with highest diagnostic discriminability. Three groups of children were evaluated with the OCI-CV and associated measures of psychopathology: OCD (N=489; mean age 12.4; 52.2% female), clinical control group (N=299; mean age 13.0; 51% female) and nonclinical control group (N=259; mean age 13.26; 49.2% female). Two revised scales were derived from the original OCI-CV. A factor analytically derived five factor version comprised of 18 items was found assessing checking/doubting, ordering, neutralizing, washing, and obsessing. ROC analyses showed this new version, the OCI-CV-R, showed a total score of 6 or higher correctly classified children 82% of the time with OCD. The OCI-CV-R was well correlated with measures of anxiety and depression. Further analyses were conducted to identify an ultra-brief version. Item analysis and factor analyses identified five items that assess checking/doubting, ordering, neutralizing, washing, and obsessing. ROC analyses showed that scores of 2 or higher on the five items were 20.88 times more likely to be in the OCD group than the nonclinical control group, and 6.85 times more likely to be in the OCD group than the clinical control group. This brief version, which we have called the OCI-CV-5, is highly correlated with the original 21 item OCI-CV. It is also well correlated with measures of anxiety and depression. The utility and limitations of these revised versions will be described, and future directions for refinement of youth OCD assessment.