The Prenatal Obsessive-Compulsive Scale: Psychometric and descriptive study in a Portuguese sample

During pregnancy, obsessive-compulsive (OC) symptoms and disorder are underdiagnosed and undertreated. The Prenatal Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (PreOCS; Lord, Rieder, Hall, Soares, & Steiner, 2011) is the only self-report questionnaire that evaluates the severity and interference of specific pregnancy-related obsessions and compulsions. We aimed to analyze the validity and reliability of the PreOCS Portuguese version and to describe the prevalence, content, severity, interference, and onset of OC symptoms in pregnancy. Three hundred fifty-five pregnant women completed the PreOCS and other self-report instruments to evaluate perinatal anxiety and depression. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed that a second-order model presented an acceptable fit. Cronbach's alphas were ≥.75 for the Severity and the Interference subscales and both were moderately correlated with depression and anxiety measures. Nearly 10% of the women presented OC symptoms with relevant severity. Co-occurrence of obsessions and compulsions (44.4%) was associated with significantly higher PreOCS scores. Obsessions about contamination, harm to the baby, others' judgment and baby's health presented the highest prevalence and increased the odds of having at least one compulsion. Searching for information, asking for reassurance, checking, and cleaning were the most reported compulsions. The Portuguese version of PreOCS has good psychometric properties, presenting itself as a valid and reliable instrument.