A Review of Assessment Measures for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Although effective psychosocial and pharmacological treatments for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) have been developed (see reviews by Abel, 1993; Cox, Swinson, Morrison, & Lee, 1993; Taylor, 1995; van Balkom et al., 1994), there is still much room for improvement in the treatment of this recalcitrant disorder. The development of more powerful treatments requires the use of psychometrically sound instruments for the assessment of treatment outcome and the standardization of assessment procedures across studies testing different treatments. In this brief review, we therefore examine the reliability and validity of the most widely used measures for OCD. Based on our findings, we make recommendations about assessment strategies for treatment outcome research on OCD.