Making sense of unwanted thoughts and the urge to repeat things.
Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS)
The Y-BOCS is a structured interview that is used to understand what you experience and how much it affects your day. It assesses symptoms of OCD, which is short for obsessive-compulsive disorder. This involves unwanted thoughts, images, or urges that keep coming back, and actions a person feels driven to repeat to ease the distress they cause. These can include checking, cleaning, counting, or going over things in the mind.
What the questionnaire looks at.
Obsessions
Unwanted thoughts, images, or urges that return even when you try to put them aside, such as worries about contamination, harm, order, or having done something wrong.
Compulsions
Actions or mental routines you feel driven to repeat, such as washing, checking, arranging, counting, or silently repeating words to ease distress or to prevent something you fear.
How much time does it take?
We assess how many hours of your day these thoughts and routines take up.
How much does it get in the way?
We understand how they affect work or study, relationships, family life, and time for things you enjoy.
How distressing it feels
We consider how upsetting the thoughts and urges are when they come.
How much control do you have?
We assess how hard it is to resist the urge and how much control you feel you have over the thoughts and the routines.
Note: Are you unsure whether this is the right assessment? A short conversation with our team is a good place to start. We will recommend the right option for your situation.
Why this assessment may be recommended
Unwanted thoughts keep coming back and are hard to set aside.
You spend a lot of time on checking, cleaning, counting, or other routines.
You feel anxious or uneasy when you try to skip or shorten a routine.
Your routines are making you late, tired, or keeping you from things you want to do.
A teenager in your family has become very distressed about certain thoughts or routines at home or at school.
You want to understand how much OCD is affecting your life before choosing a kind of support.
How the assessment works.
- 1Step 1
A conversation first
You meet a psychologist to talk about what you have noticed, when it started, and how it affects your day. Many people feel embarrassed about their thoughts. Your psychologist hears these experiences often and does not judge them.
- 2Step 2
The checklist
Your psychologist goes through a list of common obsessions and compulsions with you so that you both agree on what you experience.
- 3Step 3
The severity interview
Your psychologist asks ten questions about the past week, including how much time these thoughts and routines take, how much they interfere with your life, how distressing they are, how much you try to resist them, and how much control you have. They then rate how strongly OCD is affecting you at the moment.
- 4Step 4
Feedback and next steps
You have a complimentary feedback session of about 30 minutes where your report is explained in plain language and next steps are discussed.
Confidential and clinically guided
Your assessment is carried out with professionalism, dignity, and confidentiality. Your psychologist explains what they find in plain language, and you can ask questions at any point.
Please note: The Y-BOCS describes how strongly OCD symptoms are affecting you. It cannot diagnose OCD on its own. It is used after a conversation in which your psychologist has considered whether OCD fits your experience. A diagnosis is a clinical decision made after looking at the full picture.
Things people ask
No. You can share as much as feels comfortable. Psychologists who work with OCD hear a wide range of thoughts, including upsetting ones. They understand that having a thought does not mean you want to act on it.
No. Liking things tidy is a preference. OCD involves unwanted thoughts and routines that take up a lot of time and cause distress.
Support depends on your needs. It may include therapy and, where it could help, a consultation with a psychiatrist about whether medication is suitable. Your psychologist talks through the options with you.
Your psychologist explains the questions in a way that suits the young person's age and may also talk with parents or carers about what they notice at home. Our care coordinator can tell you how this works.
Some people feel more anxious while they talk about their thoughts. You can pause at any time, and your psychologist will check in with you.
The score describes how much OCD is affecting you over the past week. It can be repeated later to see how things change. It is a snapshot of a short period, and it does not describe who you are.
Your psychologist talks through your report with you and discusses what support may help. Our care coordinator can help you arrange next steps.
Your results are kept confidential with the standard exceptions required by law, such as a risk of serious harm to yourself or someone else. We talk with you about who will receive them before anything is shared.
Want to arrange an assessment, or just ask a question?
Our care coordinator will talk you through what to expect confidentially.
If you need urgent help: Are you in immediate distress? Please call iCall 9152987821 for immediate support.