Why the questions are shaped like this
“I don’t feel like myself” is a real report and a useless instruction. You cannot reach for a feeling. You can reach for the things the feeling was made of.
So the quiz asks what an ordinary good moment contained — people, movement, rest, purpose, play, place, freedom — and then which of those are still in your life. What is left over is the distance. Not a diagnosis, not a score. A list of specific things that used to be in your week and are not.
That list is more useful than a number, for one reason: each item on it is a thing a person can actually do something about. A mood cannot be reached for. A phone call can.
What to do with the result
Pick one missing ingredient. Take the smallest version of it. Not “see friends” but one message to one person. Not “start running” but shoes on and out to the end of the road.
Acting first and letting the feeling follow is the mechanism behind behavioural activation, which the UK’s NICE guideline on depression in adults lists among the recommended first-line options for less severe depression. The first step will feel like nothing. That is expected, and it is not evidence that it is not working.
And if this has been going on for more than two weeks, or if sleep, appetite and the things you used to enjoy have all gone together, talk to a health professional as well. NHS guidance is to see a GP if you have been feeling down for more than two weeks. You do not need to know what is wrong before you book.
Where the app takes it
DepreScan screens, it never diagnoses. It asks this short series of questions about how you have been feeling, sleeping, thinking, socialising and functioning lately, gives you a snapshot, and then does the part a snapshot cannot: hands you small daily steps aimed at whichever ingredients you said were missing.
One twenty-second check-in a day. Three small steps, or one on a hard day. No streak to protect and nothing to catch up on. The check-in, the steps, the rescue action and every crisis resource are free and stay free.
Questions people ask
What does the number of steps mean?
It is the app's own arithmetic, not a clinical measure: your distance answer divided by twelve, rounded, with a floor of one. It exists to turn a vague feeling into something with a size, because a distance can be walked and a mood cannot. It is not a score, not a severity band, and not comparable to anyone else's.
Is this a depression test?
No. There is no scoring and no screening threshold here. It is an inventory: what a good moment was made of, and how much of it is still in your life. If you want the questionnaire clinics use, the PHQ-9 self-check on this site is free and takes about two minutes.
Is anything saved?
No. Every answer, including anything you type in the free-text box, lives in this browser tab and nowhere else. Nothing is submitted, stored, logged or put into the page address. Closing the tab clears it completely.
What if none of the ingredients are still here?
That answer is allowed and it is more common than you would think. It usually means the last stretch has been long rather than that you have failed at something. It also makes the next step unusually clear: pick the one whose absence you feel most and take the smallest possible version of it this week.
Why does the app ask for a photo and this does not?
In the app, a photo of a moment when you felt most like yourself becomes your Anchor — the thing the journey points back toward. On the web the memory is enough, and skipping the photo means there is nothing to upload and nothing to store. The app does not analyse the photo either: no face recognition, no emotion detection, no upload.