[The German version of the obsessive-compulsive inventory-revised: a brief self-report measure for the...

The English original version of the OCI-R is a brief, psychometrically sound scale measuring the major symptoms of patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) on six dimensions: checking, washing, ordering, hoarding, obsessing and neutralizing. It has good convergent and discriminant validity and is sensitive to treatment effects. A German OCI-R version has not been examined until now.

Reliability and validity of an authorized German version of the OCI-R were examined in a sample of 175 patients with OCD. The patients were diagnosed by experienced psychotherapists via an interview that utilized the International Diagnostic Checklists. Other measures for anxiety, worry, depression and perfectionism were used to determine convergent and discriminant validity.

The full scale and five of six subscales had excellent internal consistency and "Neutralizing" had satisfactory internal consistency. A confirmatory factor analysis (SEM) replicated the original factor structure. All global fit indices suggested a good fit for the model. The local fit indices showed an excellent fit for 5 subscales and an acceptable fit for "neutralizing". The German version has good to excellent convergent validity and good divergent validity for the full scale and the subscales.

The good results of the Foa et al.-study have been replicated in a German sample of patients with OCD. The German version of the OCI-R proved to be a reliable and valid self-report measure of obsessive-compulsive symptoms and appears to measure OCD quite independently from anxiety, worry, depression and perfectionism.