Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the presence of tic disorder is negatively associated with sertraline (SRT) outcomes, but not with continued cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), in a sample of youth who were unresponsive to an initial full course of CBT.
Methods: In the Nordic Long-Term OCD Study, children and adolescents with OCD who were rated as nonresponders to 14 weeks of open-label CBT were randomized to continued CBT (n=28) or SRT treatment (n=22) for an additional 16 weeks of treatment. We investigated whether the presence or absence of comorbid tic disorder moderated treatment outcomes on the Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (CY-BOCS).
Results: Twelve out of 50 (24.0%) participants were diagnosed with comorbid tic disorder, with 7 receiving continued CBT and 5 receiving SRT, respectively. In patients without tic disorder, results showed no significant between-group differences on average CY-BOCS scores. However, in patients with comorbid tic disorder, those who received SRT had significantly lower average CY-BOCS scores than those who received continued CBT.
Conclusions: Children and adolescents with OCD and comorbid tic disorder, who are nonresponders to an initial 14 week course of CBT, may benefit more from a serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SRI) than from continued CBT.