Consistency between self-report and clinician-administered versions of the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale.

Background: Preliminary efforts to demonstrate the utility of a self-rated version of the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) have been promising; however, earlier reports are based on small clinical samples. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the level of agreement between the clinician-administered Y-BOCS and a self-report version.

Methods: Participants included 86 individuals with a principal diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). All participants were given the self-report version of the Y-BOCS to complete offsite and instructed to return it at a second assessment session (within a 2-week time frame), at which time a trained and experienced clinician administered the Y-BOCS interview.

Results: The two versions were moderately correlated with the highest correlation observed for the Compulsions subscale. Comparison of scores for individual items revealed several inconsistencies between the two measures: level of agreement was low for resistance items, and the interview version generated higher compulsion severity ratings.

Conclusions: The study provided moderate support for the convergence of the self-report and clinician-administered version of the Y-BOCS, however, important difference were detected between the two assessment methods.