Background: Anxiety disorders are among the most common mental health problems in youth, and faulty interpretation bias has been positively linked to anxiety severity, even within anxiety-disordered youth. Quick, reliable assessment of interpretation bias may be useful in identifying youth with certain types of anxiety or assessing changes on…

Objective: To examine family conflict, parental blame, and poor family cohesion as predictors of treatment outcome for youths receiving family-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (FCBT) for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Method: We analyzed data from a sample of youths who were randomized to FCBT (n = 49; 59% male; M age = 12.43 years) as…

Objective: To examine the efficacy of exposure-based cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) plus a structured family intervention (FCBT) versus psychoeducation plus relaxation training (PRT) for reducing symptom severity, functional impairment, and family accommodation in youths with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Method: A total of 71…

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) presents heterogeneously and can be difficult to assess in youth. This review focuses on research-supported assessment approaches for OCD in childhood. Content areas include pre-visit screening, diagnostic establishment, differential diagnosis, assessment of comorbid psychiatric conditions, tracking symptom…

Depression is the most common comorbidity among adults with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), yet little is known about depressive symptoms in childhood OCD. This study examined clinical and cognitive variables associated with depressive symptomatology in 71 youths (62% male, M age = 12.7 years) with primary OCD. Youths presented with a range…

Background: Individuals with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) may lack insight into the irrational nature of their symptoms. Among adults with OCD, poor insight has been linked to greater symptom severity, increased likelihood of comorbid symptoms, lower adaptive functioning, and worse treatment outcomes. Parallel work regarding insight among…

This article describes the development and initial psychometric properties of the Parent Tic Questionnaire (PTQ)--a new measure assessing the number, frequency, and intensity of motor and vocal tics in children and adolescents with Chronic Tic Disorder (CTD). Parents of 40 children with a CTD completed the PTQ as part of a larger assessment…

The current study utilized a cross-sectional design to examine pulling severity, phenomenology, functional impact, and "focused" and "automatic" pulling styles in women with TTM across a wide age spectrum. "Automatic" pulling refers to pulling occurring primarily out of one's awareness, while "focused" pulling refers to pulling with a compulsive…

The article examines family's involvement in child and adolescent obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms in relation to parent-, child- and family-level correlates. Results suggest that greater parental involvement in OC symptoms results in higher levels of child symptom severity and higher level of parental anxiety and hostility.

Trichotillomania (TTM) is a chronic impulse control disorder characterized by repetitive hair-pulling resulting in alopecia. Although this condition is frequently observed in children and adolescents, research on pediatric TTM has been hampered by the absence of validated measures. The aim of the present study was to develop and test a new…