Screening young people for obsessive-compulsive disorder

Abstract

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in young people is underrecognised and undertreated. Simple screening tools suitable for general practice and community services are needed. We created a seven-item self-report Short OCD Screener (SOCS) and administered it to young people aged 11-15 years, including 116 patients with OCD, 181 healthy community controls and 33 young people with other psychiatric diagnoses. The SOCS has excellent sensitivity of 0.97 (95% CI 0.91-0.98) to detect OCD cases. Its specificity is good in children without psychiatric diagnoses, but low in a psychiatric sample. The SOCS is a screening tool suitable for community but not specialist settings.