Good news for allegedly bad studies. Assessment of psychometric properties may help to elucidate deception in online studies on OCD

Moritz, Steffen; Quaquebeke, Niels Van; Hauschildt, Marit; Jelinek, Lena; Gönner, Sascha

doi:10.1016/j.jocrd.2012.07.001

Cited by 19 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…To meet our purpose, we contrasted the performance of three different populations (patients with validated diagnoses (face-to-face assessment), individuals with schizophrenia with a likely diagnosis (online assessment), and “simulators” (online assessment)). In line with a prior study on OCD patients [20], we expected that results obtained from an online sample of patients with a likely diagnosis of schizophrenia would be equivalent to those obtained from a sample with validated diagnoses thereby confirming the reliability of online assessment. In contrast, simulators were expected to overreport symptoms and to show inflated scores on a newly designed lie scale [9].…”

Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

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Can We Trust the Internet to Measure Psychotic Symptoms?

Moritz

Quaquebeke

Lincoln

et al. 2013

Schizophrenia Research and Treatment

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Online studies are increasingly utilized in applied research. However, lack of external diagnostic verification in many of these investigations is seen as a threat to the reliability of the data. The present study examined the robustness of internet studies on psychosis against simulation. We compared the psychometric properties of the Community Assessment of Psychic Experiences scale (CAPE), a self-report instrument measuring psychotic symptoms, across three independent samples: (1) participants with a confirmed diagnosis of schizophrenia, (2) participants with self-reported schizophrenia who were recruited over the internet, and (3) clinical experts on schizophrenia as well as students who were asked to simulate a person with schizophrenia when completing the CAPE. The CAPE was complemented by a newly developed 4-item psychosis lie scale. Results demonstrate that experts asked to simulate schizophrenia symptoms could be distinguished from real patients: simulators overreported positive symptoms and showed elevated scores on the psychosis lie scale. The present study suggests that simulated answers in online studies on psychosis can be distinguished from authentic responses. Researchers conducting clinical online studies are advised to adopt a number of methodological precautions and to compare the psychometric properties of online studies to established clinical indices to assert the validity of their results.

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Section: Introductionsupporting

confidence: 80%

“…After reviewing the respective literature on nonclinical studies, Hancock [16] concluded that the psychometric properties of online assessments are comparable to those of FTF interviews. Nevertheless, few data exist on the extent of manipulation in clinical (psychiatric) samples [20]. …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can We Trust the Internet to Measure Psychotic Symptoms?

Moritz

Quaquebeke

Lincoln

et al. 2013

Schizophrenia Research and Treatment

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“…We used several recommended measures (i.e., multiple recruitment cohorts, control questions that appeared twice, open-ended/detailed-response questions) to increase data integrity and diagnostic validity before and during recruitment, and in the preliminary analysis phase [4, 60]. …”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Within-group correlations and acceptable and comparable reliability coefficients between samples may serve as a proxy for OCD diagnosis validity [60]. We therefore compared Cronbach's alphas and within-group correlations between recruitment cohorts [23].…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cigarette smoking in obsessive-compulsive disorder and unaffected parents of OCD patients

et al. 2015

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Background Cigarette smoking is more prevalent among individuals with psychiatric disorders than the general population. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) may be an intriguing exception, although no recent study has investigated this hypothesis in OCD patients. Moreover, it is unknown whether reduced smoking rates are present in unaffected first-degree relatives of OCD patients. Methods We assessed smoking prevalence in adults with OCD and unaffected parents of youth with OCD (PYOCD). To this end, 113 adults with OCD completed online questionnaires assessing symptom severity and smoking status. Smoking status was obtained from an independent sample of 210 PYOCD assessed for psychiatric diagnoses. Results Smoking prevalence rates in adults with OCD (13.3%; n = 15) and PYOCD (9.5%; n = 20) samples were significantly lower than those found in representative samples of the general population (19-24%, all p < .001) and Axis I disorders (36-64%; p < .001). There were no smokers in the adult OCD subset without clinically significant depressive symptoms (n = 54). Conclusion Low prevalence of smoking in OCD may be familial and unique among psychiatric disorders, and might represent a possible state-independent OCD marker. Hypotheses concerning the uncharacteristically low prevalence rates are discussed with relation to OCD phenomenology and pathophysiology.

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“…No incentive was offered in the study to make it desirable to fake a diagnosis. Conversely, the use of online studies has been increasingly accepted as a complementary research tool (Moritz et al, 2012) and offers the opportunity to reach a more representative OCD sample, including those who are not seeking face-to-face treatment. Second, only about two-thirds of the participants who read the manual regularly performed the exercises.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%