The Global initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD) staging has widely used in the stratification of the severity of COPD, while BODE (body mass index, airflow obstruction, dyspnea, and exercise capacity) index was proven superior to FEV1 in predicting mortality, exacerbation and disease severity in patients with COPD. Clinical COPD Questionnaire (CCQ), a questionnaire with ten items categorized into three domains (symptoms, functional state and mental state) was developed to measure health status of COPD patients. However, little is known about the relationship between CCQ score and BODE index. We performed a prospective study with the inclusion of 89 patients who were clinically stable after a 6-week-therapy for COPD symptoms comparing their health status assessed by CCQ, BODE index and GOLD staging. We found that the total CCQ score was correlated with BODE score (P < 0.001) and GOLD staging (P < 0.001); of three CCQ domains, the functional status correlated the most with BODE index (rS = 0.670) and GOLD staging (rS = 0.531), followed by symptoms (rS = 0.482; rS = 0.346, respectively), and mental status (rS = 0.340; rS = 0.236, respectively). Our data suggest that CCQ is a reliable and convenient alternative tool to evaluate the severity of COPD.