THE VALIDATION OF A NEW OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE DISORDER SCALE - THE OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE INVENTORY

The Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory (OCI) is a new self-report instrume nt developed to address the problems inherent in available instruments for determining the diagnosis and severity of obsessive-compulsive di sorder (OCD). The OCI consists of 42 items composing 7 subscales: Wash ing. Checking, Doubting, Ordering, Obsessing (i.e., having obsessional thoughts), Hoarding, and Mental Neutralizing. Each item is rated on a 5-point (0-4) Likert scale of symptom frequency and associated distre ss. One hundred and forty-seven individuals diagnosed with OCD; 58 wit h generalized social phobia; 44 with posttraumatic stress disorder; an d 194 nonpatients completed the OCI and other measures of OCD, anxiety , and depression. The present article describes the psychometrics of t he OCI including (a) scale construction and content validity, (b) reli ability (internal consistency and retest reliability), and (c) converg ent and discriminant validity. The OCI exhibited satisfactory reliabil ity and validity with all 4 samples.