What this score is, and what it is not
The PHQ-9 is a screening questionnaire. Screening asks one question: is there enough here to look at properly? It is built to be broad, because missing someone costs more than a false alarm.
Diagnosis is a different job entirely, and only a qualified health professional can do it. They put a score together with your history, your physical health, your medications and your circumstances. A number cannot see a thyroid problem, a bereavement, a new prescription or a genuinely brutal six weeks. A person can.
The bands come from the study published with the instrument by Kroenke, Spitzer and Williams in the Journal of General Internal Medicine in 2001: 0–4 minimal, 5–9 mild, 10–14 moderate, 15–19 moderately severe, 20–27 severe. A cut-off of 10 gave roughly 88 percent sensitivity and 88 percent specificity for major depression, which is why most services treat 10 as the point to follow up. The US Preventive Services Task Force recommends screening adults for depression, and frames it as a step toward diagnosis and treatment rather than a substitute for either.
What to do with the number
Take it to someone. Say the score, say how long, say what has become hard. That is a complete opening sentence for an appointment, and it saves you having to find words at the worst possible moment.
Then do the other half, which no questionnaire does: take inventory of your life. Which parts have quietly gone — sleep, people, movement, something that used to be yours? A score tells you the weather. A list of what is missing tells you where to put your hand.
That is the whole idea behind DepreScan. It screens, it never diagnoses. It gives you a snapshot, then a practical plan: small daily steps aimed at the parts of your life that slipped, rather than a chart of how bad you felt. Scan, understand, reclaim.
Questions people ask
Is this an official PHQ-9 test?
It is the PHQ-9 with its item wording unchanged. The questionnaire is public domain — it was developed by Drs Robert L. Spitzer, Janet B.W. Williams, Kurt Kroenke and colleagues with an educational grant from Pfizer Inc., and no permission is required to reproduce, translate, display or distribute it. The scoring and severity bands used here are the ones published with the instrument.
Can this tell me if I am depressed?
No. It is a screening questionnaire, which means it estimates how much symptom you have reported over the last two weeks. Diagnosis is a different job: a health professional puts a score together with your history, your physical health, your medications and what else is happening in your life. A score of 10 or more is usually the point at which a clinic looks properly, not a conclusion.
Is anything saved or sent?
No. Your answers live in this browser tab and nowhere else. There is no account, no database, no submission, and nothing is written into the page address. Closing the tab or pressing Clear my answers erases everything, and the result is not recoverable afterwards — by you or by anyone else.
What if I score high?
Take the number to a health professional — a GP, a nurse, a therapist or a campus health service. Say the score, say how long it has been going on, and say what has become hard. That is a complete opening sentence and it saves you having to find the words in the room. A high score is not a verdict, and effective treatments for depression exist.
What if I score low but still feel awful?
Believe yourself. A low score does not rule out depression or anything else, and the questionnaire cannot see grief, burnout, chronic pain, a thyroid problem or a genuinely terrible month. NHS guidance is to see a GP if you have been feeling down for more than two weeks, whatever a questionnaire says.
How often should I take it?
Every two to four weeks at most. The items ask about the last two weeks, so taking it nightly mostly measures how tonight feels rather than anything meaningful. If you want something daily, a twenty-second check-in is a better fit than a nine-item questionnaire.