A 12-item daily text-message survey asks people with OCD how they feel, not only how often
- Source. A research team at the Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California (Jiang, Li, Fan, Frank) validated a 12-item, once-daily survey of OCD symptoms, sent by SMS for up to 70 days. JMIR Formative Research 2026;10:e86471, DOI 10.2196/86471, published 30 March 2026, open access under CC BY 4.0. It is a validation study of a research instrument, not a scale in clinical use.
- Sample. 22 adults with OCD (baseline Y-BOCS mean 24.9) and 19 matched healthy controls were analysed; 25 and 22 were enrolled, and 3 and 2 were withdrawn for non-participation. Participants with OCD started an SSRI during the study.
- Results. Cronbach alpha was 0.94 at survey level (95% CI 0.94–0.95) and 0.96 at person level. Correlation with the clinician-rated Y-BOCS total was ρ=0.59 (P=.004) at week 2 and ρ=0.53 (P=.01) at week 10. Controls scored 0 on 1192 of 1202 days (99.2%); the OCD group's mean was 2.03 (SD 1.07) on a 0–5 scale.
- Burden. Median completion time was 143 seconds (IQR 100–230), the completion rate was 89%, and retention was 89.1%. For the compulsions subscale the correlation with the Y-BOCS was ρ=0.27 (P=.23) at week 2 and ρ=0.44 (P=.04) at week 10.
Most OCD scales ask how much of the day went to obsessions and rituals. This 12-item survey asks that as well, then asks what the person felt: anxiety, guilt, helplessness, disgust and burden, rated once after obsessions and once after compulsions.
One text message a day
A link arrived by SMS once daily at a random time between 8 AM and 8 PM, for up to 70 days. Frequency is a 0–100 slider; each of the five feelings is rated 1–5, and only if frequency is above zero. Median completion took 143 seconds, completion was 89%, and 89.1% of participants stayed to the end. Controls scored 0 on 1192 of 1202 days (99.2%); the OCD group averaged 2.03 on the 0–5 scale. Alpha was 0.94 at survey level and 0.96 at person level. Agreement with the clinician's Y-BOCS total was ρ=0.59 at week 2 and 0.53 at week 10. For compulsions it was 0.27 at week 2 and 0.44 at week 10.
The feelings beside the count
The paper reports the full scale and two six-item subscales, not individual feelings, so it does not show which of the five tracks severity or change. It does not study exposure and response prevention either: the participants began an SSRI.
A possible use next to exposure work
The remainder is a reading of the instrument, not a result. In ERP, discomfort is meant to rise and then fall, and a frequency count alone cannot separate that from deterioration. Daily ratings of the same five feelings, kept through exposure weeks, would give clinician and client a shared record to compare. Whether the scale can tell exposure discomfort from deterioration was not tested. The 12 items are printed in the open-access article under CC BY 4.0 with attribution; the paper states no separate licence for the instrument.
The scale asks how often, and then what the person felt: anxiety, guilt, helplessness, disgust and burden, after obsessions and after compulsions.
The OCD group is small (n=22), mostly young (mean age 26.8), and started an SSRI during the study. Clinician Y-BOCS ratings were made only at weeks 0, 2 and 10, and the paper does not analyse the five feelings separately. It does not test the survey in exposure therapy.