Obsessive Compulsive Inventory Revised OCI-R
Obsessive Compulsive Inventory Revised OCI-R overview
Creator and Context
The Obsessive Compulsive Inventory Revised (OCI-R) is an 18 item self report measure of OCD symptoms.
It was developed by Edna Foa, Michael Huppert, Susanne Leiberg, Robert Langner, Rafael Kichic, Greg Hajcak and Paul Salkovskis, and published in 2002 as a short form of the original Obsessive Compulsive Inventory. It is the practical self report companion to the clinician administered Y-BOCS.
Presenting Conditions
The OCI-R produces six subscales of three items each, scoring 0 to 12:
Washing
Checking
Ordering
Obsessing
Hoarding
Neutralising
Administration
Self administered in about 5 to 10 minutes. The person rates how much each experience has distressed or bothered them in the past month, from Not at all (0) to Extremely (4).
Desired Audience
Adults, in both clinical and non clinical settings.
The OCI-R is what you use when a full Y-BOCS interview is not practical. Its six subscales give you the symptom dimension, which is what determines the shape of an exposure hierarchy, and it takes minutes rather than the best part of an hour.
Considerations
A screener and severity tracker, not a diagnostic instrument. The Y-BOCS remains the reference standard for severity.
At the cut off of 21, sensitivity and specificity are moderate, in the region of 65 and 63 percent respectively.
The hoarding subscale is a known weakness. Hoarding disorder is a separate DSM-5 diagnosis, and some authors recommend excluding those items from the OCD total.
Severity bands degrade at the upper end. The authors of the benchmarking study caution explicitly against over interpreting total scores as severity.
The instrument is copyright Edna Foa. It is widely distributed free by public health bodies, but written permission should be confirmed before commercial deployment.
How to score the Obsessive Compulsive Inventory Revised OCI-R
Conducting the assessment
The person rates 18 items from 0 to 4 for the past month. The six subscales each sum three items.
Interpretation
Items are summed to give a total from 0 to 72.
Foa et al. (2002) proposed cut offs of 21 to distinguish people with OCD from people without a psychiatric diagnosis, and 18 to distinguish OCD from other anxiety disorders.
Abramovitch et al. (2020), benchmarking against the Y-BOCS in 1,339 adults with OCD, derived severity bands of 0 to 15 mild, 16 to 27 moderate and 28 or above severe. The mild to moderate boundary performed reasonably. The moderate to severe boundary was considerably weaker, and the authors advise caution.
Clinical Considerations
Read the subscale profile, not just the total. Which dimension is elevated determines the treatment plan.
Where hoarding items are driving the total, consider whether hoarding disorder is the more accurate formulation.
Use the OCI-R for screening and tracking, and the Y-BOCS where a defensible severity rating is required.
Obsessive Compulsive Inventory Revised OCI-R use cases
Screening for OCD in adults
Identifying the dominant symptom dimension to guide exposure work
Tracking symptom change across treatment
Research in OCD and related disorders
Category
Anxiety
Research Summary
Foa, E. B., Huppert, J. D., Leiberg, S., Langner, R., Kichic, R., Hajcak, G., & Salkovskis, P. M. (2002). The Obsessive Compulsive Inventory: Development and validation of a short version. Psychological Assessment, 14(4), 485 to 496.
Abramovitch, A., Abramowitz, J. S., Riemann, B. C., & McKay, D. (2020). Severity benchmarks and contemporary clinical norms for the Obsessive Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R). Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders, 27, 100557.
Wootton, B. M., Diefenbach, G. J., Bragdon, L. B., Steketee, G., Frost, R. O., & Tolin, D. F. (2015). A contemporary psychometric evaluation of the Obsessive Compulsive Inventory-Revised (OCI-R). Psychological Assessment, 27(3), 874 to 882.
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Some assessments are copyright protected and require a licence or the copyright holder's permission for clinical, commercial or digital use. Where that applies, obtaining and maintaining that permission is the responsibility of the practice or organisation using the assessment. Tacklit provides the digital administration, scoring and reporting. We do not grant, transfer or supply rights to the underlying instrument.
