Psychometric Properties of the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory-Revised in African Americans with and without OCD

M. Williams, D. Davis, M. Thibodeau and N. Bach

Abstract 

Research has shown that many self-report measures of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) are not valid for certain ethnoracial minority populations. It is important that OCD measures be validated cross-culturally before use in these groups. This study examines the psychometric properties of the Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory Revised (OCI-R) in African Americans (N=148) to establish its validity in this population and determine clinically relevant cut-off scores. Clinical participants were administered the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV-TR, Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, and the Brown Assessment of Beliefs Scale. All participants were administered the Obsessive Belief Questionnaire – Brief Version, Beck Anxiety Inventory, and Beck Depression Inventory-II. Pearson correlations, t-tests, confirmatory factor analysis, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analyses were used to explore the relationship between measures and estimate the ability of the OCI-R to differentiate between individuals with and without OCD. Almost all scale scores exhibited acceptable to excellent internal consistency, and the OCI-R demonstrated good convergent and divergent validity. The originally proposed factor structure exhibited good to excellent fit. A cut-off score of 36 exhibited the optimal balance of sensitivity and specificity in African Americans, which is substantially greater than the score of 21 proposed in the original validation study.

 

Reference: Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorder (2013)