OCD Test (Y-BOCS)

You lock the door, walk away and still picture it standing open. A thought you hate keeps coming back no matter how hard you push it away. This OCD test measures how often that happens and how much of your day goes to checking, cleaning or repeating. It is the Yale-Brown scale, known as the Y-BOCS, which scores thoughts and actions separately.

What the test measures

Half of the questionnaire covers obsessions: intrusive thoughts, disturbing images, doubts about a task you remember finishing and worries that breed new worries. These questions ask how often a thought cuts into work or rest and whether pushing it away only makes it louder. The other half covers what people do to quiet that discomfort. Here the test looks at compulsions such as checking locks and messages again, washing past clean, lining objects up and repeating a step until it feels right. Every answer adds to one of the two sides and to the total. That total is your overall OCD level, and the two sides show whether thoughts or actions carry more of it.

How to take it and read the result

There are 30 statements written in the first person, such as «I check a lock again» or «An unwanted thought interrupts my rest». Rate each one from never to very often, thinking about the last few weeks rather than your best or worst day. Count what happens in private too, because many rituals stay invisible to others. Most people finish in about nine minutes, and the first answer that fits is usually the right one. When you finish, you get:

• your overall OCD level from 0 to 100, which opens the result;
• a separate score for the thought side and for the action side;
• the everyday pattern that stands out most, such as rechecking or replaying a scene;
• the questions that shaped each part of your result.

Each statement takes a few seconds, so the whole Y-BOCS fits into one quiet sitting at home. Many people take it when a habit starts costing them time, sleep or patience and they want words for what is going on.