Development and preliminary psychometric properties of the Rumination on Obsessions and Compulsions Scale (ROCS)

Abstract

Individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) use various strategies in response to their symptoms. We present the development of the Rumination on Obsessions and Compulsions Scale (ROCS), a 30-item questionnaire assessing mental neutralizing, OCD symptom rumination, and, additionally, acceptance, using three scales. We provide preliminary evidence for each scale's factor structure, the scales' intercorrelations, and correlations with scales measuring depressive, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive symptom severity and depressive rumination in individuals with OCD (n = 99). Additionally, we investigate differences on the ROCS between individuals with OCD, individuals with major depressive disorder (n = 74), and individuals without mental disorders (n = 35). We found preliminary support for three mental neutralizing subscales and one-factor solutions for OCD symptom rumination and acceptance. Reliability and first indicators of convergent validity of mental neutralizing were good; one mental neutralizing subscale particularly overlapped with depressive and anxiety symptom severity. We propose adaptations to improve the scale's psychometric properties. Our results additionally provide first indications that the ROCS assesses OCD symptom rumination and acceptance reliably and validly and that future research can use these scales with small or no adaptations. Future studies should investigate factor structure and psychometric properties in large samples of individuals with OCD.