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Recognizing signs of mental health disorders is not always easy.
The Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) is a diagnostic tool for mental health
disorders used by health care professionals that is quick and easy for patients
to complete. In the mid-1990s, Robert L. Spitzer, MD, Kurt Kroenke, MD, and
colleagues at Columbia University developed the Primary Care
Evaluation of Mental Disorders
(PRIME-MD), a diagnostic tool containing modules on 12 different mental health
disorders. They worked in collaboration with researchers at the Regenstrief
Institute at Indiana University and with the support of an educational grant
from Pfizer Inc. During the development of PRIME-MD, Drs. Spitzer and Kroenke,
together with Janet B.W. Williams, DSW, at Columbia University, created the PHQ
screeners.
The PHQ, a self-administered version of the PRIME-MD, contains
only the mood, anxiety, and some of the sleep disorder modules as covered in
the original PRIME-MD. This tool assesses the 15 most common physical symptoms
in primary care. A shorter, alternative version of the PHQ, called the Brief
PHQ, assesses depression, anxiety, psychological stressors, and women's
reproductive health. The PHQ-9, a tool specific to depression, simply scores
each of the 9 DSM-IV criteria based on the mood module from the original
PRIME-MD.
Please note: The PHQ-9 translations from English
into their respective languages have not been validated as depression
screeners.
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