A quick and reliable screening measure for OCD in youth: reliability and validity of the obsessive compulsive scale of the Child Behavior Checklist

Geller, Daniel A.; Doyle, Robert; Shaw, David; Mullin, Benjamin; Coffey, Barbara; Petty, Carter; Vivas, Fe; Biederman, Joseph

doi:10.1016/j.comppsych.2005.08.005

« PreviousComprehensive Psychiatry
Volume 47, Issue 3 , Pages 234-240, May 2006

A quick and reliable screening measure for OCD in youth: reliability and validity of the obsessive compulsive scale of the Child Behavior Checklist

Daniel A. Geller
- Pediatric Psychopharmacology Clinic, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA
- Corresponding author. Pediatric Obsessive Compulsive Disorder Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA.
Robert Doyle
- Pediatric Psychopharmacology Clinic, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA
David Shaw
- Pediatric Psychopharmacology Clinic, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA
Benjamin Mullin
- Pediatric Psychopharmacology Clinic, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA
Barbara Coffey
- Child Study Center, Department of Psychiatry, New York University, New York City, NY 10016, USA
Carter Petty
- Pediatric Psychopharmacology Clinic, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA
Fe Vivas
- Pediatric Psychopharmacology Clinic, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA
Joseph Biederman
- Pediatric Psychopharmacology Clinic, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA
- Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA

Abstract

Background

The high prevalence and morbidity of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in youth, the secretive nature of the disorder leading to under-recognition, and the lack of specialized child psychiatry services in many areas suggest that a simple, quick, and reliable screening tool to identify cases could be very useful to clinicians who work with children.

Method

We used 8 items from the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), an empirically derived instrument free of clinician bias, to investigate the usefulness of a previously reported CBCL-based obsessive compulsive scale (OCS) by Nelson et al [Nelson EC, Hanna GL, Hudziak JJ, Botteron KN, Heath AC, Todd RD. Obsessive-compulsive scale of the Child Behavior Checklist: Specificity, sensitivity, and predictive power. Pediatrics 2001;108(1):E14] in a separate cohort of youth with OCD. We computed the psychometric properties of the OCS in our sample of youth with OCD and in psychiatric and normal controls, and compared these to the published values.

Results

Using the recommended cutoff between the 60th and 70th percentiles of the OCS to best predict the presence of OCD, we found very high sensitivity (92%-78%), specificity (86%-94%), negative predictive value (96%-90%), and positive predictive value (77%-86%).