Everything You Need to Know: What Are the GAD & PHQ Mental Health Questionnaires?
Best 2023 Guide for Top Mental Health Questionnaire Assessment Tools
Time is often short. A clinician or social worker may have a waiting room full of patients to see, and not have time for an in-depth conversation to see if depression or anxiety is indicated.
The signs that someone has a mental health issue can be subtle. Depression and anxiety can go undetected if an individual never seeks help, which can lead to major issues throughout their life.
Patient Mental Health Questionnaire
If a person visits a doctor or emergency room for a physical ailment, doing a mental health assessment can help determine whether therapy or mental health treatment may be indicated.
To solve this problem, two popular mental health screening tools were developed. The PHQ test and GAD test are short questionnaires that medical and mental health professionals can administer to see if an individual may be suffering from anxiety or depression.
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Table of Contents: PHQ GAD Assessment Tools
Keep on scrolling down this page to read each section or click any link below to go directly to that section.
- Are PHQ and GAD Assessments Similar?
- What Is the PHQ Questionnaire?
- What Is the GAD Questionnaire?
- What Is PHQ-2 vs PHQ-9?
- How to Read the Patient Health Questionnaire Score
- What Is GAD-2 vs GAD-7?
- How to Read the GAD Score
- Conclusion | Mental Health Questionnaire Assessment Tools (GAD and PHQ)
- FAQ | GAD and PHQ Score Interpretation
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Do you have feedback or questions about the patient mental health questionnaire and scoring tools used by your health organization? If so, contact the Social Work Portal Team.
Are PHQ and GAD Assessments Similar?
The Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) assessments were created by the same team. While they are similar in framework, they address different areas of mental health.
The GAD (commonly referred to as GAD-7) is a test to see if anxiety is present, and the PHQ (commonly referred to as PHQ-9) is a test to see if depression is present.
These two mental health conditions can be present in the same individual, so both mental health questionnaires can potentially be given to a person during an assessment.
Both the GAD-7 and the PHQ-9 were developed by Drs. Robert L. Spitzer, Janet B. W. Williams, Kurt Kroenke, and colleagues, with an education grant from Pfizer, Inc. and published in 1999.
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What Is the PHQ Questionnaire? Why is it Important?
The PHQ patient health questionnaire is a short survey designed to test whether or not a person may be suffering from depression and need further treatment.
The PHQ can be given in either a nine-question (PHQ-9) or two-question (PHQ-2) format. We’ll explain the difference between the two shortly. There is also a PHQ-4, which combines questions from the PHQ and GAD surveys.
The questions in the PHQ screening are formatted for the individual to indicate how often a certain feeling or problem has been experienced over the last two weeks.
The respondent will choose from the following frequency for each question:
- Not at all
- Several days
- More than half the days
- Nearly every day
A PHQ screening is done to determine whether someone may be suffering from depression, and how severe their depression symptoms may be.
Because the PHQ full form has very few questions, it’s a quick and easy way for healthcare professionals to screen a patient. The PHQ screening can also be a self-administered test or given verbally by a clinician.
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Do you have any questions about PHQ interpretation or a patient health questionnaire PDF? Do you have feedback or questions about the GAD and PHQ scores used by your clinical health organization? If so, contact the Social Work Portal Team.
What Is the GAD Questionnaire? Why is it Important
The GAD generalized anxiety disorder test is a short survey designed to test whether an individual may be suffering from anxiety and need further treatment.
The GAD can be given in either a seven-question (GAD-7) or two-question (GAD-2) format. We’ll go through the difference between them shortly.
Like the patient health questionnaire, the questions in the GAD survey are formatted for the individual to indicate how often they’ve experienced a certain issue over the last two weeks.
The respondent will choose from:
- Not at all
- Several days
- More than half the days
- Nearly every day
A generalized anxiety disorder screening is to determine whether someone may be suffering from anxiety, and how severe their anxiety may be.
The GAD test can also be self-administered or given by a clinician.
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Do you have questions about the patient health questionnaire pdf referenced in this guide? If so, contact the Social Work Portal Team.
What Is PHQ-2 vs PHQ-9? Comparisons
In some situations, such as an emergency room or busy clinic, it may be difficult for staff to give someone a PHQ full form test with all nine questions. The PHQ-2 was developed for those situations.
The key difference between the two is the number of questions and the next steps to take after the PHQ screening.
- PHQ-2: Two questions. If the score from the PHQ scale indicates possible depression, the PHQ-9 would then be administered to identify the severity.
- PHQ-9: Nine questions. If the patient health questionnaire scoring indicates something above minimal depression, then the clinician would take the appropriate next steps to provide support.
Next, we’ll go over the patient health questionnaire score.
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How to Read the Patient Health Questionnaire Score
The PHQ score meaning is based on how the patient answers how often they’ve experienced the following indicators of depression:
- Little interest or pleasure in doing things
- Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless
- Trouble falling asleep or sleeping too much
- Feeling tired or having little energy
- Poor appetite or overeating
- Feeling bad about yourself – or that you are a failure or have let yourself or family down
- Trouble concentrating on things, such as reading the newspaper or watching television
- Moving or speaking so slowly that other people have noticed. Or the opposite – being so fidgety or restless that you have been moving around a lot more than usual.
- Thoughts that you would be better off dead, or of hurting yourself in some way.
PHQ Scoring Guide
PHQ-2:
The PHQ score interpretation for PHQ-2 looks at answers for the first two questions only:
Answer scores: “Not at all” = 0, “Several days” = 1, “More than half the days” = 2, “Nearly every day” = 3.
If the score from the two questions is 3 or greater, a depressive disorder is likely.
PHQ-9:
The PHQ test interpretation for PHQ-9 looks at answers for all nine questions:
Answer scores: “Not at all” = 0, “Several days” = 1, “More than half the days” = 2, “Nearly every day” = 3.
The total of the 9 questions use this scoring to indicate the client’s level of depression.
- 0 – 4: None to Minimal Depression
- 5 – 9: Mild Depression
- 10 – 14: Moderate Depression
- 15 – 19: Moderately Severe Depression
- 20 – 27: Severe Depression
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What Is GAD-2 vs GAD-7?
Just like in the PHQ mental health questionnaire assessment, the number after “GAD” indicates how many questions are included in the test. The GAD-2 uses just the first two questions that are in the seven-question GAD-7.
The GAD-2 acts as an initial rapid test to indicate whether or not anxiety is indicated and if so, the full GAD-7 would be given as a next step.
- GAD-2: Two-question survey (the first two questions of the GAD-7)
- GAD-7: Seven-question survey
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How to Read the GAD Score
The GAD and PHQ scores are read similarly. The GAD scoring will be based on how often the individual indicates they’ve experienced the following:
- Feeling nervous, anxious, or on edge
- Not being able to control or stop worrying
- Worrying too much about different things
- Trouble relaxing
- Being so restless that it is hard to sit still
- Becoming easily annoyed or irritable
- Feeling afraid, as if something awful might happen
GAD Scoring Guide
GAD-2:
The score interpretation for GAD-2 looks at answers for the first two questions only:
Answer scores: “Not at all” = 0, “Several days” = 1, “More than half the days” = 2, “Nearly every day” = 3.
If the score is 3 or greater, a general anxiety disorder is likely.
GAD-7:
The GAD-7 uses the same numeric values for the scoring:
Answer scores: “Not at all” = 0, “Several days” = 1, “More than half the days” = 2, “Nearly every day” = 3.
The total of the 7 questions use this scoring to indicate the client’s level of anxiety.
- 0 – 4: Minimal Anxiety
- 5 – 9: Mild Anxiety
- 10 – 14: Moderate Anxiety
- 15 – 21: Severe Anxiety
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Conclusion | Mental Health Questionnaire Assessment Tools (GAD and PHQ)
Mental health questionnaire tools like the GAD and PHQ assessment surveys help medical and mental health professionals quickly assess individuals for depression or anxiety disorders.
The fact that both these mental health assessments are fairly short and easy to fill out also makes them great self-administered tests that people can do online.
Social work, medical, and mental health professionals use the PHQ and GAD regularly as vital diagnostic tools in their toolbox. So, if you’re planning to go into one of those fields, it’s important for you to understand what they are and how to use them.
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FAQ | GAD and PHQ Score Interpretation
What are questionnaires for mental health?
Mental health questionnaires are surveys that can be given online, on paper, or verbally to an individual. They can also be self-administered.
They are designed to quickly identify whether an individual may need treatment for anxiety, depression, or another mental health condition.
What is PHQ-9 Screening?
The PHQ patient health questionnaire is a short survey designed to test whether or not a person may be suffering from depression and need further treatment.
The PHQ can be given in either a nine-question (PHQ-9) or two-question (PHQ-2) format. The number indicates how many questions are in the PHQ test.
What is a normal PHQ-9 score?
The total of the 9 questions in the PHQ-9, use this scoring to indicate the client's level of depression.
•0 - 4: None to Minimal Depression
•5 - 9: Mild Depression
•10 - 14: Moderate Depression
•15 - 19: Moderately Severe Depression
•20 - 27: Severe Depression
What are PHQ and GAD scores?
The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) test is a nine-question survey to measure a person’s level of depression.
The Generalized Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire is a seven-question survey to measure a person’s level of anxiety.
How often someone experiences symptoms of either depression or anxiety will create a score that the clinician can use to gauge the severity of the disorder.
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