Designed to facilitate the recognition of depression in primary care patients
Who should take the PHQ?
Ideally, should be used when a patient feels depressive symptoms that might interfere with your physiotherapy treatment
Making a diagnosis?
Since the questionnaire relies on patient self-report, it is a screening tool. Definitive diagnoses must be verified by a psychologist/psychiatrist, considering as well as medical checks, other relevant information from the patient, his or her family or other sources.
Step 1: Patient-Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2)
The PHQ-2 enquires about the frequency of depressed mood and anhedonia over the past 2 weeks
Includes the first 2 items of the PHQ-9
To screen for depression in a ‘first-step’ approach
Patients who screen positive (score 2 or higher) should be further evaluated with the PHQ-9
Step 2: PHQ-9
This is calculated by assigning scores of 0, 1, 2, and 3, to the response categories of ‘not at all’, ‘several days’, ‘more than half the days’ and ‘nearly every day’, respectively
Total score ranges from 0 to 27
Depression severity score is 16 (3 items scored 1, 2 items scored 2, and 3 items scored 3)
Scores of 5, 10, 15 and 20 represent cur off points for mild, moderate, moderately severe and severe depression, respectively
