did a 2025 study pool four trials of more than 600 kids aged 6 to 18 with ocd? yes

“a 2025 study by Cohen and colleagues who'll data from four randomized controlled trials involving more than 600 children and adolescents, ages 6 to 18 with OCD.”

a host, a psychiatrist said on The Carlat Psychiatry Podcast, 2026-10-12, at 02:22. hear it in context → the speaker cited: a 2025 study by Cohen and colleagues.

the episode: How Much Do SSRIs Really Help Kids with OCD? (at 02:22). we link the show's own page; we do not re-host audio.

first, the part that holds

The description holds. The 2025 Cohen et al. paper is an individual participant data meta-analysis of four randomized, placebo-controlled trials of SSRIs for pediatric OCD. It covers 614 patients, and the authors split them into age bands of 6 to 11 and 12 to 18.

what we found when we went and looked

The PubMed record for Cohen et al., J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2025;64(7):775-785 (PMID 39799995), says the authors got data from 4 studies covering 614 patients. That sample is 86% of everyone ever enrolled in double-blind, placebo-controlled SSRI trials for pediatric OCD. The publisher's full text breaks the 614 into 319 on an SSRI and 295 on placebo, with a mean age of 11.9. It says 59% were 6 to 11 and 41% were 12 to 18, so the speaker's age range matches the paper. The paper went online in January 2025 and appeared in the July 2025 print issue, so "2025" holds either way. Each clause of the description checks out. What the description leaves out is the result: about a 3-point drop on the 0-to-40 child OCD rating scale (CY-BOCS) beyond placebo, which the authors call a small effect.

assertion by assertion

both directions

for the speaker: The PubMed abstract confirms the author, the year, the four trials and the 614 patients. The full text gives the 6-to-11 and 12-to-18 age bands, which match the speaker's "ages 6 to 18". The 614 is above "more than 600", and the trials were randomized and placebo-controlled as described. The design is individual participant data meta-analysis, meaning the authors pooled each patient's raw data rather than published summary numbers. That fits the speaker's word "pooled" and is a stronger method than the usual meta-analysis.

against: Nothing in the record contradicts the description. "Four RCTs" does need some context. The four are industry-sponsored trials that went to a regulator, all run in North America between 1991 and 2000, and 88% of the children were White. Two smaller trials (n = 99) were left out because their data could not be obtained. The authors say adding those trials' published results did not change the effect much. Someone who hears only the sample size might read more into the study than it supports. Its main finding is a small average benefit, about 3 points on a 40-point scale, and less benefit in more severe cases.

what this cannot say

The age range comes from the full text. The PubMed abstract does not give it. We could not open the publisher pages (sciencedirect.com and jaacap.org returned errors). We read the publisher's version-of-record PDF, licensed CC BY, through the authors' institutional repository and cite it by its DOI. The paper does not name the four trials or their drugs because the datasets are proprietary, so we cannot say which SSRIs are covered. We checked only the speaker's description of the study, not how the podcast interpreted it. The study measures short-term effects (10 to 13 weeks) and says nothing about long-term outcomes.

sources, each one fetched and read

1. Cohen SE, de Boer A, Storosum BWC, et al. Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Individual Participant Data: Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Trials of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors for Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2025;64(7):775-785. PMID 39799995 (NCBI PubMed record) What we read there: Data were obtained from 4 studies comprising 614 patients. Meta-analysis showed reduction of 3.0 CY-BOCS points compared with placebo (95% CI 2.5-3.5), corresponding to a small effect size (0.38 Hedges' g). Fetched 2026-10-15 (HTTP 203). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39799995/
2. Editorial: Meta-Analysis of Individual Participant Data From Trials of Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors for Pediatric Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: A Gold Standard Approach. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2025;64(7):768-769. PMID 40139344, doi 10.1016/j.jaac.2025.03.016 What we read there: An editorial on the Cohen and colleagues meta-analysis of SSRIs vs placebo in children and adolescents with OCD, including the moderating effects of baseline patient variables; it notes pediatric OCD has about 2% prevalence. Fetched 2026-10-15 (HTTP 203). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40139344/
3. Cohen SE et al. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2025;64(7):775-785, doi 10.1016/j.jaac.2025.01.001, publisher's version of record (CC BY), full text read via the authors' institutional repository copy What we read there: For age, we used the continuous variable and dichotomized between ranges 6 to 11 years and 12 to 18 years... mean (SD) age was 11.9 (3.0); 41% were between ages 12 and 18, and 59% were between 6 and 11. In the pooled sample, 295 participants were assigned to placebo, and 319 were assigned to an SSRI. Table 1 lists four trials starting 1991-2000 in the United States/Canada. Fetched 2026-10-15 (HTTP 200). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2025.01.001

speakers are described by role, not named. one sentence is quoted under fair use, with attribution and a link to the original at the timestamp; we do not re-host audio or video. nothing on this page is a reason to start, stop or change a medication. if you have the file behind anything marked unverifiable, the research board is where people can answer. adam