Young children with OCD benefit from family-based treatment

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-05/l-ycw051508.php

Although children as young as 5 can be diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), few research studies have looked at treatments specifically geared toward young children with this disorder. Now, a new study from the Bradley Hasbro Children’s Research Center provides some of the first evidence-based data on a successful intervention for early childhood OCD. According to the study’s findings, published in the May issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, children with OCD between the ages of 5 and 8 may benefit from a form of psychotherapy, known as family-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), that is uniquely tailored to the child’s developmental needs and family context. The overall focus of family-based CBT is to provide both child and parents with a set of tools to help them understand, manage and reduce OCD symptoms. “If left untreated, early childhood OCD can severely disrupt and impair a child’s development and functioning and can extend into adulthood. Despite this risk, clinicians do not have a proven treatment model for these young children,” says lead author Jennifer B. Freeman, Ph.D., of the Bradley Hasbro Children’s Research Center and an assistant professor of psychiatry/human behavior (research) at The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.