This item is being used for development purposes and has not yet been assured by the Information Standards Board for Health and Social Care.

The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ9) is a type of ASSESSMENT TOOL.

The Patient Health Questionnaire is designed to facilitate the recognition and diagnosis of depression in PATIENTS.

For PATIENTS with a depressive disorder, a Patient Health Questionnaire can be calculated and repeated over time to monitor change.

The responses for each of the 9 items are as follows:

• 0 - Not at all
• 1 - Several days
• 2 - More than half the days
• 3 - Nearly every day

The score ranges are:

0 - 4	None
5 - 9	Mild
10 - 14	Moderate
15 - 19	Moderately Severe
20 - 27	Severe

If one or two values are missing from the score, then they can be substituted with the average score of the non-missing items. Questionnaires with more than two missing values should be disregarded.

The recommended cut off score for the Patient Health Questionnaire is 9, so a PERSON scoring 10 or above will be considered to be suffering from clinically significant symptoms of depression.

Further details about the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ9) are available from the PHQ screeners website. 

This supporting information is also known by these names:

Context	Alias
shortname	PHQ9
plural	Patient Health Questionnaires