Our pathway analyses suggested that in community samples youth meeting criteria for ODD and/or CD in late childhood and adolescence fall into one of three broad groupings: those who only ever meet full criteria for ODD, those who only ever meet full criteria for CD and those who meet full criteria for both disorders at some point between late childhood and middle adolescence. We compared these three groups in terms of exposure to a range of potential risk factors, comorbidities and psychiatric outcomes in early adult life. All three groups were clearly differentiated from youth who did not meet criteria for ODD/CD on almost all of these indicators. These results clearly highlight that ODD is a disorder worthy of clinical recognition rather than a feature of normal child development. In addition, we identified a number of features (largely consistent with evidence from past reports) that distinguished ODD and CD. By contrast, comparisons between ‘pure’ and ‘combined’ disorder patterns did not highlight substantial differences.
