Screening young people for obsessive compulsive disorder.

Area of Science:

• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Mental Health Screening
• Psychometric Validation

Background:

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in youth is frequently overlooked and inadequately treated.
• There is a critical need for accessible screening instruments in primary care and community settings for early detection.
• Current screening methods may not be optimized for use with diverse pediatric populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and validate a brief, self-report screening tool for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in adolescents.
• To assess the sensitivity and specificity of the Short OCD Screener (SOCS) in a mixed sample of adolescents.
• To determine the utility of the SOCS for community-based versus specialist clinical settings.

Main Methods:

• Development of a seven-item self-report questionnaire, the Short OCD Screener (SOCS).
• Administration of the SOCS to three groups of young people aged 11-15 years: 116 with OCD, 181 healthy controls, and 33 with other psychiatric diagnoses.
• Statistical analysis to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the SOCS in differentiating OCD cases.

Main Results:

• The SOCS demonstrated excellent sensitivity (0.97) for detecting obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in the study sample.
• Specificity was high among healthy community controls but significantly lower when assessed within a psychiatric sample.
• The findings suggest the SOCS is effective for screening in general community settings.

Conclusions:

• The Short OCD Screener (SOCS) is a promising tool for the early identification of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in community-based youth.
• While highly sensitive, the SOCS's lower specificity in psychiatric samples indicates it is best suited for initial screening rather than definitive diagnosis in specialist care.
• Further validation in diverse clinical populations may be warranted to refine its application.