Introduction
The Yale–Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale, usually shortened to Y-BOCS, is one of the best-known tools for describing how severe obsessive-compulsive symptoms are at a given point in time. Rather than asking whether a person simply has OCD or does not have OCD, the scale focuses on how much symptoms are affecting daily life. That distinction matters. Two people can both have obsessive thoughts and repetitive rituals, but one may experience brief, manageable symptoms while another may lose hours a day to distress, checking, washing, arranging, repeating, or mental rituals. The Y-BOCS is meant to capture that difference in severity.
This calculator totals the 10 core severity questions that make up the standard Y-BOCS symptom score. Five items relate to obsessions, and five items relate to compulsions. Each item is scored from 0 to 4. When you add the items together, you get a total score between 0 and 40. The calculator also separates the two halves of the scale so you can see whether obsessions, compulsions, or both are contributing most to the overall burden.
It is important to keep the purpose of the tool in perspective. The original Y-BOCS was developed as a clinician-administered instrument, not as a stand-alone diagnosis test. A trained professional can ask follow-up questions, clarify whether thoughts are truly intrusive and unwanted, distinguish compulsions from ordinary routines, and consider other possible explanations such as generalized anxiety, depression, illness anxiety, tic disorders, trauma-related symptoms, or psychosis. For that reason, this page should be used as an educational scoring aid and a conversation starter, not as a substitute for professional assessment.
If you are using the calculator for self-reflection, the most helpful approach is to treat the number as a structured snapshot of the last week. A score can help you describe the intensity of symptoms more precisely. It can also help you track change over time when used consistently, especially during treatment. What it cannot do is confirm a diagnosis, rule one out, or tell you on its own what treatment is right for you.
How to Use
To use the calculator, go through each of the 10 questions and choose the option that best matches your average experience over the past week. Do not answer based only on your single best day or your single worst day. Instead, think about what was typical overall. That is how the Y-BOCS is usually intended to be rated.
The first five items focus on obsessions. In plain language, obsessions are intrusive, unwanted thoughts, images, or urges that feel difficult to dismiss and usually create anxiety, discomfort, disgust, doubt, or a sense that something is not right. The next five items focus on compulsions. Compulsions are repetitive behaviors or mental acts that a person feels driven to do in response to an obsession or to rigid rules, often to reduce distress or prevent a feared outcome.
As you answer, each question asks about one dimension of severity. Some items focus on time spent, which is the approximate amount of waking time symptoms occupy. Some focus on interference, meaning how much symptoms disrupt work, school, family life, relationships, routines, sleep, or leisure. Others focus on distress, the emotional discomfort caused by the symptoms. The final items ask about resistance and control, which try to measure how much effort you make to resist the symptoms and how much control you feel you actually have over them.
A practical tip: if your symptoms fluctuate a lot, it can help to picture a normal weekday and a normal weekend day from the last week, then mentally average them. If you are torn between two options, choose the one that better reflects the overall pattern rather than isolated extremes. The goal is not perfection. The goal is a fair summary.
After all 10 questions are answered, select Calculate Score. The result panel will show your total score, your obsession subscore, your compulsion subscore, and a commonly used severity band. You can also copy the summary text if you want to save it, paste it into notes, or bring it to an appointment.
Formula
The Y-BOCS scoring rule is simple, but the meaning comes from how the items are organized. Each question contributes between 0 and 4 points, with higher values indicating greater severity in that area. The total score is the sum of all 10 items:
In that formula, Q1 through Q5 are the five obsession items and Q6 through Q10 are the five compulsion items. Because each item is scored 0 to 4, the minimum total is 0 and the maximum total is 40.
Many clinicians also look at the two subscales separately because the balance matters. Someone can have a moderate total driven mostly by obsessions, or a similar total driven mostly by compulsions. The calculator therefore also computes:
Obsessions subscale = Q1 + Q2 + Q3 + Q4 + Q5, with a range from 0 to 20.
Compulsions subscale = Q6 + Q7 + Q8 + Q9 + Q10, with a range from 0 to 20.
The commonly cited interpretation ranges are reference bands rather than hard medical categories. Many sources describe totals of 0–7 as subclinical or minimal, 8–15 as mild, 16–23 as moderate, 24–31 as severe, and 32–40 as extreme. Different clinics and studies sometimes use slightly different words or cutoffs, but the basic idea is consistent: higher totals generally mean symptoms consume more time, create more distress, interfere more with daily life, and feel harder to resist or control.
| Y-BOCS total score | Typical severity label | General description |
|---|---|---|
| 0–7 | Subclinical or minimal | Symptoms are absent or present with little current impairment. |
| 8–15 | Mild | Symptoms are noticeable and meaningful, but often still partly manageable. |
| 16–23 | Moderate | Symptoms are persistent and clearly interfere with normal functioning. |
| 24–31 | Severe | Symptoms occupy substantial time and cause major disruption or distress. |
| 32–40 | Extreme | Symptoms are nearly constant, disabling, or very difficult to interrupt. |
One useful way to interpret the formula is this: the score rises when symptoms take more time, cause more interference, create more distress, resist your efforts to push back, or feel less under your control. The calculator does not weigh one item more than another. Every question contributes equally to the final total.
Example
Suppose a person answers the 10 items with the following scores: 2, 3, 3, 1, 2 for the obsession items and 2, 2, 2, 1, 2 for the compulsion items. The obsession subscale would be 2 + 3 + 3 + 1 + 2 = 11. The compulsion subscale would be 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 + 2 = 9. Adding the two together gives a total Y-BOCS score of 20.
A total of 20 falls in the moderate range using the common reference table above. In plain language, that usually suggests symptoms are clearly present, recur regularly, and affect daily functioning in a noticeable way. It does not prove OCD on its own, but it does mean the pattern is substantial enough that professional discussion would be sensible, especially if the person is distressed, avoiding activities, losing time to rituals, or struggling to work, study, or maintain relationships.
A second example shows why the subscales matter. Imagine two people both have a total score of 18. The first person has 14 points from obsession items and 4 from compulsion items, meaning intrusive thoughts are the main problem. The second person has 6 points from obsessions and 12 from compulsions, meaning overt or mental rituals are contributing more heavily. The same total can therefore describe different clinical pictures. That is why the calculator reports the two halves separately instead of showing only one number.
Understanding the Result
Once you calculate your score, start with the total, then look at the subscores, and finally read the guidance in context. A low total does not automatically mean everything is fine if your symptoms still feel frightening or disruptive. A higher total suggests greater symptom burden, but it still does not settle diagnostic questions, treatment fit, or urgency by itself. Severity is only one part of the overall picture.
Many clinicians also care about change over time. For example, if the same person scores 26 before treatment and 17 after several weeks of therapy, that drop may suggest meaningful improvement even though symptoms are still present. Tracking scores over time can therefore be useful, but only if the same general rating frame is used each time. Small day-to-day changes are less informative than broader trends across weeks or months.
If you plan to reuse the tool, try to answer on the same basis each time: think about the previous week, rate typical severity, and avoid comparing a calm day this time with a crisis day last time. Consistency makes the score more useful.
Limitations
This calculator has several important limitations, and understanding them is part of using it responsibly. First, it is not a diagnostic instrument by itself. OCD diagnosis depends on the nature of the symptoms, insight, level of distress, functional impact, and the need to rule out other explanations. A person can have a high score from symptoms that resemble OCD but arise from another condition, and a person with genuine OCD may underreport symptoms and obtain a lower score than expected.
Second, the tool depends on self-report. People often underestimate or overestimate how much time symptoms take, especially when distress has become routine. Mental rituals can be particularly hard to count because they are less visible than behaviors like checking or washing. Memory, shame, fear of judgment, perfectionism, and the difficulty of averaging a fluctuating week can all affect the result.
Third, the Y-BOCS measures severity, not symptom theme. It does not tell you whether symptoms center on contamination, checking, harm, morality, religion, sexuality, symmetry, relationships, health, or another obsessional theme. It also does not measure depression, panic, trauma symptoms, suicidal thinking, substance use, or broader functioning in a comprehensive way.
Fourth, the result is a snapshot. OCD symptoms can wax and wane. Stress, sleep loss, illness, reassurance, avoidance, or changes in treatment can all shift the picture. One weekly score is useful, but it should not be overinterpreted as a permanent measure of who you are or how you will always feel.
Finally, do not use this page to make treatment decisions on your own. It should never be the sole basis for starting or stopping medication, changing therapy plans, or deciding that care is unnecessary. If your symptoms are troubling you, or if you are unsure whether what you are experiencing fits OCD, the appropriate next step is a qualified mental health professional who can perform a fuller assessment.
When to Seek Professional Help
Consider reaching out for professional support if intrusive thoughts or rituals are taking up substantial time, if you are avoiding people or situations because of symptoms, if you feel trapped in reassurance-seeking or repetitive checking, or if your distress is starting to interfere with sleep, school, work, family life, or basic routines. Even a score in the mild range can be worth discussing if the symptoms feel sticky, frightening, embarrassing, or progressively worse.
Urgent support matters even more if you feel unsafe, hopeless, unable to function, or worried about acting on harmful thoughts. Online calculators are not crisis tools. If you are in immediate danger or think you might harm yourself or someone else, contact emergency services or a crisis resource in your area right away.
Sources and Further Reading
The Y-BOCS was originally developed by Goodman and colleagues as a clinician-rated measure of OCD severity and has been widely used in research and clinical practice ever since. If you want a deeper understanding of how the scale was validated, how scores are used in treatment studies, or how clinician-rated and self-report versions differ, the best next step is to consult peer-reviewed papers, clinical guidelines, and evidence-based OCD treatment resources.
For treatment information, look for reputable material on exposure and response prevention therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy for OCD, and medication options discussed with a prescriber. Those resources can help put the score into a more meaningful care context.
Optional Mini-Game: Symptom Sort Sprint
This short arcade-style exercise does not change your calculator result. It is a replayable way to reinforce one of the central ideas behind the Y-BOCS: obsessions and compulsions are related, but they are scored separately. In the game, symptom cards slide toward a review gate. Your job is to file each card left for Obsessions or right for Compulsions before the decision window closes. Gold cards represent higher-severity pressure, and later phases get faster and less predictable.
Best score saved on this device: 0. Takeaway: the real Y-BOCS totals 10 items, but it also matters whether the load is coming from the obsession half, the compulsion half, or both.