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The underlying structure of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) remains to be confirmed in child and adolescent populations. In this paper we report the first factor analytic study of individual OCD items from Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (CY-BOCS). OCD symptoms were assessed using the CY-BOCS symptom checklist in a sample of 854 patients with OCD (7-18 years of age) recruited from clinics in five countries. Pooled data were subjected to exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to identify the optimal factor structure. Various models were tested for age and gender subgroups. Also, the invariance of the solution across age and gender was tested and associations with demographic and clinical factors were explored. A three-factor model provided the best-fit solution. It consisted of the following factors: (1) harm/sexual, (2) symmetry/hoarding, (3) contamination/cleaning. The factor structure was invariant for age and gender across subgroups. Factor one was significantly correlated with anxiety, and factor two with depression and anxiety. Factor three was negatively correlated with tic disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Females had higher scores on factor two than males. The OCD symptom structure in children and adolescents is consistent across age and gender and similar to results from recent child and adolescents although hoarding may not be a separate factor. Our three-factor structure is almost identical to that seen in early studies on adults. Common mental disorders had specific patterns of associations with the different factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlabelled: The aims of the present study were to examine OCD-related impairments in clinical cases of childhood OCD and to replicate and extend previous research on OCD-related impairments., Method: Sixty-eight patients aged 8-17 years recruited from four child psychiatric outpatient clinics in Norway and Sweden with a confirmed DSM-IV diagnosis of OCD were included in the study. All patients and their parents were interviewed for diagnosis and comorbidity (KSADS),OCD symptoms and severity (CY-BOCS), and global impairment (CGAS). OCD-specific impairments were assessed by means of the Child OCD Impact Scale (COIS), a 58 item questionnaire with parallel parent and child versions., Results: Overall, the majority of patients suffered from substantial impairments. The impact of OCD symptoms was found to be most severe at home, but impairments were also prominent in situations related to school and social settings., Conclusions: Our study supports findings of previous research suggesting multiple impacts of OCD symptoms on children's psychosocial functioning. We conclude that impairment issues should be further addressed in future research to establish a better empirical basis for the understanding of different aspects of OCD-related impairment.