Demographic and clinical features of obsessive-compulsive disorder in children and adolescents

To describe the demography, symptomatology, and comorbidity of 31 clinically referred children and adolescents with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

The patients were assessed in an outpatient clinic for lifetime psychopathology with the Diagnostic Interview for Children and Adolescents. The child and adolescent version of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (CY-BOCS) was used to group obsessive-compulsive symptoms and rate symptom severity. Demographic, medical, developmental, academic, and behavioral information was recorded by the parents in the Yale Children's Inventory and the Child Behavior Checklist.

The male-female ratio was approximately 3:2. Most patients had had multiple obsessions and compulsions that had changed over time. The CY-BOCS correlated highly with another measure of obsessive-compulsive behavior, but not with any of the Child Behavior Checklist scales. Symptom severity was influenced by an interaction between gender and age at onset of the illness. More than 80% of the subjects had other lifetime psychiatric diagnoses.

The results provide further evidence that obsessive-compulsive disorder is a chronic, severe illness in children and adolescents that is often associated with other forms of psychopathology. The data support the concurrent and discriminant validity of the CY-BOCS.