Predictors and Moderators of Treatment Outcome in the Pediatric Obsessive Compulsive Treatment Study (POTS I)

ObjectiveTo identify predictors and moderators of outcome in the first Pediatric OCD Treatment Study (POTS I) among youth (N = 112) randomly assigned to sertraline, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), both sertraline and CBT (COMB), or a pill placebo.MethodPotential baseline predictors and moderators were identified by literature review. The outcome measure was an adjusted week 12 predicted score for the Children's Yale Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (CY-BOCS). Main and interactive effects of treatment condition and each candidate predictor or moderator variable were examined using a general linear model on the adjusted predicted week 12 CY-BOCS scores.ResultsYouth with lower obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) severity, less OCD-related functional impairment, greater insight, fewer comorbid externalizing symptoms, and lower levels of family accommodation showed greater improvement across treatment conditions than their counterparts after acute POTS treatment. Those with a family history of OCD had more than a sixfold decrease in effect size in CBT monotherapy relative to their counterparts in CBT without a family history of OCD.ConclusionsGreater attention is needed to build optimized intervention strategies for more complex youth with OCD. Youth with a family history of OCD are not likely to benefit from CBT unless offered in combination with an SSRI.Clinical Trials Registration InformationTreatment of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) in Children, http://www.clinicaltrials.gov, NCT00000384.