Content overlap between youth OCD scales: Heterogeneity among symptoms probed and implications

Abstract

Assessing obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) in paediatric populations is complex, and a number of scales have been developed or validated for this purpose. As is the case with instruments measuring other mental health disorders, it is often assumed that youth OCD scales assess the same construct and can be used interchangeably. However, the extent to which this is true is unknown. One way to assess this – beyond calculating convergent validity – is to measure the extent of content overlap between scales. In the current paper, we apply a recently-developed method of content overlap analysis to a set of freely-available, self-report instruments for OCD measurement that were developed for or validated in paediatric populations. We found a high level of heterogeneity among scales purportedly assessing the same construct. Implications for clinical practice and research are discussed, as well as what further research is required.