Obsessive-compulsive symptoms and their links to depression and anxiety in clinic- and community-based pediatric...

Area of Science:

• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Clinical Psychology
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Depression and anxiety frequently co-occur in youth with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
• This co-occurrence is associated with increased OCD severity, functional impairment, and poorer treatment outcomes.
• Genetic factors are implicated, but the specific pathways linking these conditions in youth remain underexplored, especially considering symptom heterogeneity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the network structure linking obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), depression, and anxiety in youth.
• To examine how specific symptom dimensions of OCD relate to dimensions of anxiety and depression.
• To replicate findings across diverse multinational and community-based samples.

Main Methods:

• Network analysis was employed to map the relationships between symptoms.
• Data were collected from a multinational sample of youth diagnosed with OCD (n=419).
• Findings were validated using three independent school-recruited, community-based samples (n=2,991).

Main Results:

• Obsession severity initially linked OCD to depression, consistent with prior research.
• When considering specific OCD symptom content (e.g., doubting/checking) and anxiety, a clearer network emerged.
• Obsessing and doubting/checking dimensions of OCD were linked to panic and generalized anxiety dimensions, respectively, which in turn were linked to depression. These patterns were consistent across samples.

Conclusions:

• Youth with OCD exhibiting doubting/checking and obsessing symptoms require thorough assessment for panic and generalized anxiety.
• Interventions targeting panic and generalized anxiety may benefit youth with OCD who do not respond to standard treatments.
• Further research is necessary to confirm the efficacy of anxiety-focused interventions in this population.