Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9)

Discover our free PDF Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) to closely assess mental health. Take the first step towards managing and evaluating depression symptoms, and alleviate pains to start your journey towards happier and healthier clients.

By Matt Olivares on Mar 18, 2024.

Fact Checked by Nate Lacson.

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What Is The PHQ-9?

The is one of the most commonly used screening tools for depression across the world, and it’s been around for more than twenty years in one form or another. The PHQ-9 started outas a section of Pfizer’s much broader PRIME-MD diagnostic tool and has since moved into the public domain.

The assessment starts with the question “Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following problems?” and provides nine different scenarios to which the patient will respond “Not at all”, “Several Days”, “More than half the days” or “Nearly every day”. The scenarios are taken from the DSM-IV criteria for depression, allowing practitioners to score against the authoritative guide to mood disorders such as depression.

Each response is assigned a score leading to an overall total for the patient which is then used to rank the severity of depression and inform treatment decisions.

Printable Patient Health Questionnaire

Download this Patient Health Questionnaire and better assess the severity of your client’s depression.

How To Use This Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) Assessment

Step One: Provide the PHQ-9 Template to your Patient 

The first step is to provide your patient with a copy of the PHQ-9 assessment. You may choose to provide them with a digital copy or a physical copy, or you may prefer to administer the PHQ-9 verbally. 

Step Two.: Nine survey questions

The main part of the PHQ-9 is the survey of nine questions. These correspond to one of the criteria for depression from the DSM-IV, and are presented as questions to which your patient should select the frequency with which they experience each question. 

Step Three: Final additional question

The final additional question should also be answered for any positive responses and measures the degree to which your patient’s responses impact their daily life.

Step Four: Tally the final score

Each response is assigned a number with 0, 1, 2, and 3 respectively corresponding to “not at all”, “several days”, “more than half the days” and “nearly every day”. Tally up the scores to get a single number out of 27.

Step Five: Decide on Interventions

The final score can then inform treatment decisions for your patient, and the assessment can be repeated serially to determine progress and decide on interventions at each step of the patient’s treatment process.

Step Six: Store the PHQ-9 Securely

Once the assessment is complete, ensure you store the completed PHQ-9 securely with the rest of your patient’s medical record. This may be a physical location, but we recommend utilizing electronic medical record software.  

Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) Example (Sample)

While this PHQ-9 has been kept simple enough to be completed independently, you may also wish to administer it verbally or assist your patients as they complete the questions. In order to ensure you can confidently score, or aid your patients to complete this assessment, just take a look at our example PHQ-9 assessment. This example is based on a fictional patient and demonstrates the interactive features of this PDF. You can read the example Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) below, or download it as a PDF if you prefer. 

Download this Patient Health Questionnaire Example (Sample) here:

Patient Health Questionnaire Example (Sample)

Who Can Use These Printable Patient Health Questionnaires (PDF)?

Although the PHQ-9 can be self-administered by your patient, in order to correctly interpret the results of this questionnaire, the PHQ-9 must be supervised by a trained healthcare practitioner. The widespread nature of depressive disorders means there are many different practitioners who may find this questionnaire useful, including:

  • Clinical Psychologists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Counselors
  • Primary care physicians
  • Mental Health Nurses
  • Psychiatrists and Psychiatric Nurses

Why is This Template Popular with Psychologists?

Standardize Depression Screening Process

Ensuring you give every patient the same care and attention is a crucial part of being an ethical mental health practitioner. Standardizing your processes through widely used assessments such as the PHQ-9 is a great way to do this.

Improve Communication

When communicating with other members of your patient’s care team, using their PHQ-9 score will mean you can communicate clearly and concisely in terms that are widely used and understood.

Use for adults and adolescents

The PHQ-9 has been validated for use in a wide variety of populations including older adults, college students, and adolescents, meaning you can use one template for the majority of your patients.

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How To Interpret Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) Results

To interpret the results of the PHQ-9, add the total score. This means adding together the scores from all 9 questions.

Each score is assigned 0 points (not at all), 1 point (several days), 2 points (more than half of the days), or 3 points (nearly every day), which results in a maximum score of 27.

The exact interpretations are the following:

  • 0-4 = No depression
  • 5-9 = Mild depression
  • 10-14 = Moderate depression
  • 15-19 = Moderate severe depression
  • 20-27 = Severe depression

Please note that the PHQ-9 is not a diagnostic tool, and if a depression diagnosis is needed, this must be given by a healthcare professional.

Why Use Carepatron for Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) Software?

PHQ-9 is just one of many clinical assessments you may use in your day-to-day practice as a mental health worker, and with every assessment, encounter, and treatment decision comes admin work. This can become a large portion of your day, which could be better spent doing what you do best – and that’s where Carepatron comes in.

Carepatron is a state-of-the-art software solution tailored to healthcare practices that handles everything from appointment scheduling to superbill automation and is packed with smart features to save you time.

Offer your clients access to their own Carepatron client portal where they can access their medical records and book appointments with you, or utilize our smart AI-powered dictation software for getting your progress notes done in record time.

Carepatron additionally offers bank-level, HIPAA-compliant digital encryption so you can rest assured your patient’s documentation will be secure, and with Carepatron’s mobile or desktop platforms, you’ll be able to access them whenever you need.

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How do I conduct a Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) Assessment?
How do I conduct a Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) Assessment?

Commonly asked questions

How do I conduct a Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) Assessment?

The simplicity of this PHQ-9 Assessment template allows you to conduct this assessment however you like! You can provide a paper or digital copy to your patient to complete prior to a session with you, or give it as a verbal survey to your patient and note down their answers for them.

When should I use the PHQ-9 Assessment?

The PHQ-9 is designed to assess not only the severity of depression but the presence of depression as well. This means it can be given to patients with diagnosed or suspected depression, as well as used as a screening tool for any patient who may be at risk for depression. It can also be used as a checkpoint to evaluate progress concerning mental health over time.

Why use a Patient Health Questionnaire?

The patient health questionnaire helps to incorporate the DSM criteria into a simple survey that can be self-administered or conducted verbally. Once complete, the PHQ-9 provides a simple numerical measurement that can be easily communicated to others in your patient’s care team, allowing you to standardize the diagnostic and assessment results.

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