The effect of depression symptom severity on OCD treatment outcome in an adolescent residential sample

• At admission, those with severe depressive symptoms had significantly greater OCD severity.
• Depression severity level at admission did not differentially affect OCD severity at discharge.
• Level of depression severity at admission did not impact duration of treatment.

Studies examining the impact of depressive symptoms on OCD treatment outcome among adults have led to suggestions that perhaps only severe depressive symptoms negatively impact OCD treatment outcome. The present study sought to examine the impact of level of depression severity on OCD severity at admission and discharge among 126 adolescents (M age=15.47, 52.4% female, 89.7% Caucasian) who received residential treatment for OCD. Participants were grouped by level of depressive symptoms and several analyses of variance were conducted to determine the impact of level of depressive symptoms on OCD severity at admission and discharge. Further, a hierarchical multiple regression was conducted to determine whether change in depression severity predicted discharge OCD severity controlling for admission OCD severity. Results indicated that level of depression severity at admission significantly related to admission OCD severity but did not have a significant effect on OCD severity at discharge, controlling for admission OCD severity. Further, level of depression severity at admission did not impact treatment duration. Controlling for admission OCD severity, greater change in depression severity significantly predicted lower OCD severity at discharge. It is possible that the intensive treatment setting may reduce the negative impact of depressive symptoms on OCD treatment outcome.