Mood Disorder Questionnaire (MDQ)

Thirteen yes-or-no questions ask whether there has ever been a period when a person was not their usual self and felt so good or hyper that others noticed, was so irritable that they started arguments, felt much more self-confident than usual, slept much less without missing it, talked faster, had racing thoughts, was easily distracted, had much more energy, was much more active, was much more social, was much more interested in sex, did unusual or risky things, or spent money in ways that caused trouble. Two further questions ask whether several of these happened during the same period and how much of a problem they caused.

Hirschfeld and colleagues (2000) developed the questionnaire because bipolar disorder is often first treated as depression: people tend to seek help when low, and periods of elevated mood may not be recognized or mentioned. The items follow the description of manic and hypomanic episodes in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

The report shows how many of the thirteen experiences were endorsed, whether they clustered in the same period and how much difficulty they caused. A screen is considered positive only when enough symptoms occurred together and led to at least moderate problems. A positive screen means that a careful clinical history is warranted; it does not establish a diagnosis, and a negative screen does not rule one out.

The questionnaire is used in primary care and mental health services, especially when depression is being assessed, and in research on bipolar spectrum conditions. On this site, the Hypomanic Personality Scale describes a stable trait disposition toward elevated mood, and the PHQ-9 measures current depressive symptoms.

The Mood Disorder Questionnaire asks about lifetime manic and hypomanic symptoms, whether they occurred together, and how much trouble they caused, and its results converge with structured interview diagnoses of bipolar spectrum disorder (Hirschfeld et al., 2000).

A review found that it identifies bipolar I disorder better than bipolar II disorder in psychiatric outpatients, and that people with borderline personality features or substance use can also screen positive, which marks the limits of its discriminant validity (Zimmerman & Galione, 2011).

“you felt so good or so hyper that other people thought you were not your normal self, or you were so hyper that you got into trouble?”

Illustrative only. During administration items are presented one screen-set at a time; response-key direction is never shown to respondents.

Scored by the instrument's published three-criterion screening algorithm (symptom count, co-occurrence, and impairment).