ABSTRACT
OBJECTIVE: Although obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) has long been a unitary diagnosis, there is much recent interest in its potential heterogeneity, as manifested by symptom subgroups. Although the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) is a widely used instrument to assess obsessive-compulsive symptomatology, the variables reflecting the pathogenesis of OCD and Y-BOCS subscores usually were not significantly associated. The aims of this study are to clarify identification of dimensional structure of the symptoms from YBOCS checklist and to explore the factor structure of the Y-BOCS. METHODS: Ninety five OCD patients participated in this study and performed the Y-BOCS and Y-BOCS checklist. The 13 main symptom categories from Y-BOCS checklist and 10 items from Y-BOCS were factor analyzed by using principal components analysis, respectively. RESULTS: Using principal component analysis, we derived 4 factors from 13 main contents of YBOCS checklist. Four factors-hoarding/repeating, contamination/cleaning, aggressive/sexual, and religious/somatic- accounted for more than 60% of the variance. And we derived 3 factors from 10 items of Y-BOCS and these 3 factors-severity of obsession, severity of compulsion, and resistance to symptoms-accounted for more than 70% of variance. CONCLUSIONS: The four symptom dimensions from Y-BOCS checklist and three symptom dimensions from Y-BOCS were identified as significant factors accounting for the variance. These factors may be of value in future genetic, neurobiological, and treatment response studies.