Screening questionnaire

PHQ-9 Depression Screening Test

The nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire, the depression screener used in primary care worldwide, scored instantly and privately.

Published items
Not a diagnosis

Items: 9
Time: 2 min
Scales: 3
Scale: 4-pt

Free, no account needed. A screening questionnaire, not a diagnosis.

You'll find out: Mood symptoms over the past two weeks, using the nine published PHQ-9 items — a screening questionnaire, not a diagnosis.

Want to understand what you’re about to do? The sections below explain what this assessment measures, where the questions came from, and what you’ll see at the end. Already decided? The start button is up top.

What this is really asking

The PHQ-9 asks how often each of nine experiences has troubled you over the past two weeks. Those nine items are not an arbitrary list — they map onto the nine diagnostic criteria for a major depressive episode, which is why a questionnaire short enough to finish in three minutes became the instrument most general practitioners reach for first.

Rather than returning one number, this version also splits your answers across three groups: mood and loss of interest, physical symptoms such as sleep, appetite and energy, and the cognitive side — concentration and how you view yourself. Two people can reach an identical total by very different routes, and the shape matters. Depression that shows up mainly as exhaustion and disrupted sleep is a different experience from depression that shows up mainly as self-criticism, and the distinction is often the useful part of the result.

Because the items ask about the past two weeks specifically, the score describes a recent window rather than a fixed trait. A high score during a period of grief, illness or acute stress is telling you about that period. Retaking the screener after several weeks is a more informative reading than any single result.

The parts it pulls apart

Mood & Interest — Low mood and loss of pleasure
Physical Symptoms — Sleep, energy, appetite, movement
Self-View & Focus — Concentration and self-worth

What lands on your screen at the end

You get a total in the standard 0–27 range with the severity band it falls in — minimal, mild, moderate, moderately severe or severe — plus the three sub-scores as a chart, so you can see which cluster is carrying the total.

If you indicate any thoughts of self-harm on the final item, the result page opens with crisis line details before anything else, regardless of your total. That item is treated as significant on its own, which is how it is treated clinically.

Where these questions came from

PHQ-9 (Patient Health Questionnaire-9)

Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R. L., & Williams, J. B. W. (2001). The PHQ-9: Validity of a brief depression severity measure. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 16(9), 606–613.

This version: All nine published items and the original four-point frequency anchors, kept intact so the validated severity ranges apply. Each item carries an added plain-language description of what the symptom looks like day to day; the symptom being asked about is unchanged.

This is a screening questionnaire for reflection and education. It is not a diagnosis, and it cannot replace an assessment by a clinician. No account is required and your answers are not shared.

Common questions

Is the PHQ-9 a diagnosis of depression?

No. The PHQ-9 is a screening questionnaire, not a diagnostic interview. It measures how frequently you have experienced nine symptoms over two weeks and indicates whether that pattern warrants a conversation with a clinician. A diagnosis requires a professional assessment that considers your history, physical health, medication and circumstances — things no questionnaire can see. A high score is a reason to seek an evaluation, not a substitute for one.

What is a normal PHQ-9 score?

Totals run from 0 to 27. The conventional bands are 0–4 minimal, 5–9 mild, 10–14 moderate, 15–19 moderately severe, and 20–27 severe. A score of 10 or above is the threshold most often used to flag that further assessment is warranted, because that is where the questionnaire's sensitivity and specificity for major depression are both around 88 percent.

Why does it ask about the past two weeks?

Two weeks is the minimum duration in the diagnostic criteria for a major depressive episode. A bad few days is a normal response to a bad few days; a symptom that persists across two weeks is a different signal. The window is what makes the score interpretable, so answering for how you feel today rather than across the fortnight will give you a misleading result.

Are my answers private?

You can take this screening without an account and without giving an email address. Results are stored against an anonymous token in your browser so you can view them, and you only ever link them to an identity if you choose to create an account later.