Cognitive-Behavior Therapy Augmentation of Pharmacotherapy in Pediatric Obsessive Compulsive Disorder: The Pediatric OCD Treatment Study II (POTS II) Randomized, Controlled Trial
Abstract
Context The extant literature on the treatment of pediatric OCD indicates that partial response to serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs) is the norm, and that augmentation with short-term OCD-specific cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) may provide additional benefit. Objective To examine the effects of augmenting SRIs with CBT or a brief form of CBT, instructions in CBT (I-CBT) delivered in the context of medication management (MM). Design A 12-week, 3 (site: Penn, Duke, Brown) × 3 (treatment conditions: MM, MM+I-CBT, & MM+CBT) × 4 (repeated measures: weeks 0, 4, 8, & 12) randomized controlled trial. Setting The outpatient clinics of three academic medical centers between 2004 and 2009. Participants Outpatients (N = 124) between the ages of 7–17 with primary OCD and a Children’s Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (CY-BOCS) score ≥ 16 despite an adequate SRI trial. Interventions Participants were randomized to receive 12 weeks of: 1) MM (7 sessions), 2) MM+I-CBT (7 sessions) or 3) MM+CBT (7 sessions of MM plus 14 concurrent CBT sessions). Main Outcome Measures Responder status as defined as a post-treatment CY-BOCS reduction of 30% or greater compared to baseline; change in continuous CY-BOCS total score over 12 weeks. Results MM+CBT was superior to MM and to MM+I-CBT on all outcome measures. In the primary ITT analysis, 68.6% in MM+CBT (95% confidence interval [CI], 53.9%–83.3%) were considered responders, which was significantly better than the 34.0% in MM+I-CBT (95% CI,…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a randomized trial, done in people. Its evidence level is 2 of 5 (High · randomized trial). Randomized trials of a reasonable size are the strongest single-study design. Reported size: 124 participants or records.
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