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Self-tests / PHQ-9

Depression test (PHQ-9)

The PHQ-9 is the nine-question depression screener used across primary care. It asks how often each problem has bothered you over the last two weeks and scores 0 to 27.

Items
9
Minutes
2
Sign-up
None

0 of 9 answered

First, roughly how old are you?

Screening scores read differently at different ages. This lets us tell you what your result tends to mean in your decade, and what is worth ruling out first. It is not required. If you give it, only its decade is added to an anonymous daily count, with no identifier.

9 questions, about 2 minutes

Question 1 of 9

Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following problems?

  1. Little interest or pleasure in doing things
  2. Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless
  3. Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much
  4. Feeling tired or having little energy
  5. Poor appetite or overeating
  6. Feeling bad about yourself, or that you are a failure or have let yourself or your family down
  7. Trouble concentrating on things, such as reading the newspaper or watching television
  8. Moving or speaking so slowly that other people could have noticed? Or the opposite, being so fidgety or restless that you have been moving around a lot more than usual
  9. Thoughts that you would be better off dead or of hurting yourself in some way

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About the PHQ-9

The PHQ-9 is the depression module of the Patient Health Questionnaire, a self-administered version of the PRIME-MD diagnostic instrument. Its 2001 validation study had 6,000 patients in 8 primary care and 7 obstetrics-gynecology clinics complete it, and checked 580 of them against an independent structured interview by a mental health professional. A score of 10 or more had a sensitivity of 88 percent and a specificity of 88 percent for major depression, and as scores rose, functional status fell on every subscale measured while sick days and clinic visits rose. The nine questions map to the nine DSM-IV criteria for a major depressive episode, each scored 0 (not at all) to 3 (nearly every day) over the last two weeks.

How this page scores it: it adds your answers into a total of 0 to 27, and reads the result against the bands the source publishes: 0 to 4 is minimal; 5 to 9 is mild; 10 to 14 is moderate; 15 to 19 is moderately severe; 20 to 27 is severe. Every band's wording on the result page is ours, written from the source's guidance for that range, and a result at or above the follow-up threshold says so in plain words rather than as a color.

Severity bands are the validation study's: 0-4 minimal, 5-9 mild, 10-14 moderate, 15-19 moderately severe, 20-27 severe. A score of 10 or more is the common cutoff for a clinical evaluation. The instrument is reproduced as published and scored the way its published source scores it. A screening questionnaire estimates symptom severity over the last two weeks; only a clinician can diagnose, and scores can be elevated by grief, medical illness or medications.

If you are in crisis, call or text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) any time.