The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) is a type of ASSESSMENT TOOL.

The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 is designed to facilitate the recognition and diagnosis of depression in PATIENTS.

For PATIENTS with a depressive disorder, a Patient Health Questionnaire-9 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-9 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-9 (PHQ-9) are available from the PHQ screeners website. 

This supporting information is also known by these names:

Context	Alias
shortname	PHQ-9