Measuring symptoms of obsessive-compulsive and related disorders using a single dimensional self-report scale

Beatriz Moreno-Amador; José A Piqueras; Tíscar Rodríguez-Jiménez; Agustín E Martínez-González; Matti Cervin

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2023.958015

Measuring symptoms of obsessive-compulsive and related disorders using a single dimensional self-report scale

Front Psychiatry. 2023 Feb 14:14:958015. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2023.958015. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Beatriz Moreno-Amador¹, José A Piqueras¹, Tíscar Rodríguez-Jiménez², Agustín E Martínez-González³, Matti Cervin^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Health Psychology Department, Miguel Hernández University, Elche, Spain.
² Department of Psychology and Sociology, University of Zaragoza, Teruel, Spain.
³ Department of Developmental Psychology and Didactics, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain.
⁴ Department of Clinical Sciences Lund, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
⁵ Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Lund, Sweden.

Abstract

Background: Obsessions and compulsions are heterogenous but can be classified into obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), hoarding disorder (HD), hair-pulling disorder (HPD), and skin-picking disorder (SPD). OCD is in itself heterogenous, with symptoms clustering around four major symptom dimensions: contamination/cleaning, symmetry/ordering, taboo obsessions, and harm/checking. No single self-report scale captures the full heterogeneity of OCD and related disorders, limiting assessment in clinical practice and research on nosological relations among the disorders.

Methods: To provide a single self-report scale of OCD and related disorders that respects the heterogeneity of OCD, we expanded the DSM-5-based Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders-Dimensional Scales (OCRD-D) so that is also includes the four major symptom dimensions of OCD. A psychometric evaluation and an exploration of the overarching relations among the dimensions were conducted using an online survey which was completed by 1,454 Spanish adolescents and adults (age span = 15-74 years). Approximately 8 months after the initial survey, 416 participants completed the scale again.

Results: The expanded scale showed excellent internal psychometric properties, adequate test-retest correlations, known groups validity, and correlations in the expected directions with well-being, depression/anxiety symptoms, and satisfaction with life. The higher-order structure of the measure indicated that harm/checking and taboo obsessions formed a common disturbing thoughts factor and that HPD and SPD formed a common body-focused repetitive behaviors factor.

Conclusion: The expanded OCRD-D (OCRD-D-E) shows promise as a unified way to assess symptoms across the major symptom dimensions of OCD and related disorders. The measure may be useful in clinical practice (e.g., screening) and research, but more research on construct validity, incremental validity, and clinical utility is needed.

Keywords: adolescents; adults; body dysmorphic disorder; hair-pulling disorder; hoarding disorder; obsessive-compulsive (OC) spectrum disorders; obsessive-compulsive and related disorders; skin-picking disorder.

Grants and funding

This research named “Espectro-TOC: Modelos predictivos de trastornos relacionados con el TOC” [OCD-Spectrum: Predictive models of disorders related to OCD] was supported by a grant from the Alicia Koplowitz Foundation [“Ayudas a la investigación en psiquiatría, psicología y/o neurociencias del niño y el adolescente y en neuropediatría, XV Convocatoria 2019” (“Grants for research in psychiatry, psychology and/or neuroscience of children and adolescents and in pediatric neurology, XV Call 2019”)], as well as one predoctoral fellowship co-financed by the European Social Fund and the Regional Ministry of Education, Research, Culture and Sport from the Generalitat Valenciana (BM-A: ACIF/2019/055).