Overview

Survey Doctor's DOCS uses the official form: four groups of five questions about the last month. Each group produces a dimension score from 0 to 20, and the four add to a total from 0 to 80. Higher numbers mean more reported time, avoidance, distress, disruption, or difficulty. Survey Doctor shows the scores without severity labels.

What the DOCS measures

The official DOCS form covers four obsessive-compulsive symptom dimensions:

Contamination
Responsibility for harm, injury, or bad luck
Unacceptable thoughts
Symmetry, completeness, and things feeling "just right"

Each dimension starts with a description and examples. Five questions then ask about time, avoidance, distress, disruption of daily routine, and difficulty disregarding the thoughts or refraining from the behaviors during the last month.

The 2010 development study evaluated that 20-item, four-dimension design across clinical and nonclinical samples. The descriptions matter because they define which experiences a person should consider before rating them.

How the digital form works

Survey Doctor shows each dimension's description and examples before its five questions, numbered 1 to 5 as on the form. All 20 questions are required, and each answer stores the printed value from 0 to 4.

The examples are not a checklist. A person's own concerns can differ from them and still belong to the dimension.

How scoring works

Each group contains five values from 0 to 4. The five values add to a dimension score from 0 to 20.

Dimension	Form section	Range
Contamination	Category 1	0-20
Responsibility	Category 2	0-20
Unacceptable thoughts	Category 3	0-20
Symmetry	Category 4	0-20

Adding all four dimension scores produces the 0-to-80 total. Higher numbers mean more reported burden. They do not identify a diagnosis or select care.

Cutoffs and labels

In the development study, a total of 21 gave the best balance of sensitivity and specificity for separating people with OCD from people with other anxiety disorders, correctly classifying about 70% of each group. A total of 18 gave the best balance for separating people with OCD from nonclinical adults, an unscreened college-student sample, correctly classifying about 78% of each group. These are comparison-specific screening results from those samples. They are not severity categories.

Survey Doctor does not attach a severity label to any DOCS score. Current result, report, and export paths also withhold labels saved under earlier product groupings. The numeric total and four dimensions remain available.

Using the result

Review the four dimensions before the total. Two people can reach the same total through different symptom patterns.

A score cannot show the cause of an experience, determine treatment, or prove that a change came from care. A low total also does not mean that help is unnecessary when symptoms take time or disrupt daily life.

For a plain-language guide to the numeric output, read what your DOCS score means.

The OCI-R is an 18-item OCD symptom questionnaire with six 0-to-12 subscales. Its dimensions and total are not convertible to DOCS scores.

DOCS: Dimensional Obsessive-Compulsive Scale