Symptom patterns in children and adolescents with obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD)

Objective: Obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD) defined at the diagnostic level encompasses divergent symptoms. The present study examines symptom patterns in OCD in children and adolescents in order to search for the presence of diagnostic heterogeneity. Subjects and methods: Two hundred and thirteen outpatients with primary OCD participated. The patients’ and primary caretakers’ responses on the Childrenʹs Yale-Brown Obsessive–Compulsive Scale were used to generate severity ratings for 61 OCD symptoms, and cluster analysed them. Results: A five cluster solution was judged to be the most clinically and theoretically relevant model. The clusters were named: (1) “Mental Rituals, Touching & Ordering”, (2) “Contamination & Cleaning”, (3) “Superstitions”, (4) “Obsessions/Checking & Confessing” and (5) “Somatic Concerns”. The symptom patterns of the groups differed, and three groups were particularly homogeneous. In addition, there were differences in severity, number of symptoms and age. Conclusions: OCD in children and adolescents is a heterogeneous disorder and discrepancies vis-à-vis adult studies indicate that childhood OCD may have developmentally specific traits. The sub-groups obtained are likely to have implications for the assessment of OCD symptoms in children, their prognosis and outcome in treatment research.