Personal Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9)
Depression

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

How often during the past 2 weeks were you bothered by...	Not at all	Several days	More than half the days	Nearly every day
1. Little interest or pleasure in doing things?	0	1	2	3
2. Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless?	0	1	2	3
3. Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much?	0	1	2	3
4. Feeling tired or having little energy?	0	1	2	3
5. Poor appetite or overeating?	0	1	2	3
6. Feeling bad about yourself, or that you are a failure, or have let yourself or your family down?	0	1	2	3
7. Trouble concentrating on things, such as reading the newspaper or watching television?	0	1	2	3
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?	0	1	2	3
9. Thoughts that you would be better off dead, or of hurting yourself in some way?	0	1	2	3

Scoring

If two consecutive numbers are circled, score the higher (more distress) number. If the numbers are not consecutive, do not score the item. Score is the sum of the 9 items. If more than 1 item missing, set the value of the scale to missing. A score of 15 or greater is considered major depression, 20 or more is severe major depression.

Characteristics

Tested on 344 subjects with diabetes.

No. of items	Observed Range	Mean	Standard Deviation	Internal Consistency Reliability	Test-Retest Reliability
9	0-23	6.40	5.73	.88	NA

Source of Psychometric Data

English-language Diabetes Self-Management Study (not yet published).

Comments

This scale available in Spanish.

References

Kroenke K, Spitzer RL, Williams JB, The PHQ-9: Validity of a brief depression severity measure, Journal of General Internal Medicine. 2001, 16(9): pp.606-13.

Kroenke K, Spitzer RL, The PHQ-9: A new depression and diagnostic severity measure, Psychiatric Annals. 2002, 32: pp. 509-21.

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