title: The Brazilian Research Consortium on Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders: recruitment, assessment instruments, methods for the development of multicenter collaborative studies and preliminary results.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To describe the recruitment of patients, assessment instruments, implementation, methods and preliminary results of The Brazilian Research Consortium on Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders, which includes seven university sites.
  
  
  METHODS
  This cross-sectional study included a comprehensive clinical assessment including semi-structured interviews (sociodemographic data, medical and psychiatric history, disease course and comorbid psychiatric diagnoses), and instruments to assess obsessive-compulsive (Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale and Dimensional Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale), depressive (Beck Depression Inventory) and anxious (Beck Anxiety Inventory) symptoms, sensory phenomena (Universidade de São Paulo Sensory Phenomena Scale), insight (Brown Assessment Beliefs Scale), tics (Yale Global Tics Severity Scale) and quality of life (Medical Outcome Quality of Life Scale Short-form-36 and Social Assessment Scale). The raters' training consisted of watching at least five videotaped interviews and interviewing five patients with an expert researcher before interviewing patients alone. The reliability between all leaders for the most important instruments (Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV, Dimensional Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale, Universidade de São Paulo Sensory Phenomena Scale) was measured after six complete interviews.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Inter-rater reliability was 96%. By March 2008, 630 obsessive-compulsive disorder patients had been systematically evaluated. Mean age (+/-SE) was 34.7 (+/-0.51), 56.3% were female, and 84.6% Caucasian. The most prevalent obsessive compulsive symptom dimensions were symmetry and contamination. The most common comorbidities were major depression, generalized anxiety and social anxiety disorder. The most common DSM-IV impulsive control disorder was skin picking.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The sample was composed mainly by Caucasian individuals, unmarried, with some kind of occupational activity, mean age of 35 years, onset of obsessive-compulsive symptoms at 13 years of age, mild to moderate severity, mostly of symmetry, contamination/cleaning and comorbidity with depressive disorders. The Brazilian Research Consortium on Obsessive-Compulsive Spectrum Disorders has established an important network for standardized collaborative clinical research in obsessive-compulsive disorder and may pave the way to similar projects aimed at integrating other research groups in Brazil and throughout the world.
authors.affiliation: Clinical Hospital, Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil.
authors.forename: Euripedes Constantino
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Miguel
authors.forename: Ygor Arzeno
authors.initials: YA
authors.lastname: Ferrão
authors.forename: Maria Conceição do
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Rosário
authors.forename: Maria Alice de
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Mathis
authors.forename: Albina Rodrigues
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Torres
authors.forename: Leonardo Franklin
authors.initials: LF
authors.lastname: Fontenelle
authors.forename: Ana Gabriela
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Hounie
authors.forename: Roseli Gedanke
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Shavitt
authors.forename: Aristides Volpato
authors.initials: AV
authors.lastname: Cordioli
authors.forename: Christina Hojaij
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Gonzalez
authors.forename: Kátia
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Petribú
authors.forename: Juliana Belo
authors.initials: JB
authors.lastname: Diniz
authors.forename: Dante Marino
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Malavazzi
authors.forename: Ricardo C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Torresan
authors.forename: Andréa Litvin
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Raffin
authors.forename: Elisabeth
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: Daniela T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Braga
authors.forename: Sonia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Borcato
authors.forename: Carolina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Valério
authors.forename: Luciana N
authors.initials: LN
authors.lastname: Gropo
authors.forename: Helena da Silva
authors.initials: Hda S
authors.lastname: Prado
authors.forename: Eduardo Alliende
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Perin
authors.forename: Sandro Iêgo
authors.initials: SI
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.forename: Helen
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Copque
authors.forename: Manuela Corrêa
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Borges
authors.forename: Angélica Prazeres
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Lopes
authors.forename: Elenita D da
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Silva
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D003865:Major Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007391:International Cooperation; D008297:Male; D015337:Multicenter Studies as Topic / Q000379:methods*; D009771:Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D018579:Patient Selection; D012107:Research Design