Behavioral interventions in the studies ranged from 12 to 20 sessions, each for 60 to 90 minutes, for a total of 30 hours, 21 hours, 14 hours, or 12 hours.
Three studies used a medication comparison group. One of these used both medication and pill placebo comparison arms. The fourth used individuals on a wait list as controls. Dosing was reported as:
- Zoloft at 150 mg daily for the combined group and 200 mg in the medication alone group,
- Anafranil at 2.5 mg/kg of body weight with a range of 1.4 mg/kg to 3.3 mg/kg, and
- Luvox at least 200 mg per day.
The researchers found that the number of participants who continued to have compulsive behaviors (defined as more than 10 points on the Children's Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale) after behavioral treatment was:
- Significantly less than those receiving placebo in the least biased study (relative risk 0.63, 95% CI 0.46 to 0.86),
- Significantly reduced compared to children and adolescents on a wait list (RR 0.13, 95% CI 0.04 to 0.36) in one study, and
- Similarly fewer in another study compared to participants on a wait list (RR 0.24, 95% CI 0.13 to 0.46).
