Guide
Depression and anxiety screening for practices
Two short questionnaires carry most routine screening for depression and anxiety in outpatient care: the PHQ-9 and the GAD-7. Implicitify scores both by their published rules and returns the result to the clinician who sent them.
Screening measures
- Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). Nine questions about depressive symptoms over the past two weeks.
- Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7). Seven questions about anxiety symptoms over the past two weeks.
- Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10). Ten questions about general psychological distress over the past four weeks.
- Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21). Twenty-one questions with separate scores for depression, anxiety and stress.
- Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS). Ten questions for depression during pregnancy and after birth.
The PHQ-9
The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) is the depression module of the Patient Health Questionnaire. Kroenke, Spitzer and Williams described it in 2001 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The PHQ-9 has nine items, one for each depression criterion in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). Each item is rated from 0 to 3, so totals run from 0 to 27. Kroenke and colleagues grouped totals into five bands, from minimal to severe depression.
The GAD-7
The Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7) is a seven-item anxiety scale. Spitzer, Kroenke, Williams and Löwe published it in 2006 in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Items are rated from 0 to 3, and totals run from 0 to 21. The authors grouped totals into four bands, from minimal to severe anxiety.
What comes back to you
You send each client a secure patient link from the clinician portal. The client answers without an account. The report shows the total and the published severity band. Results stay in your dashboard, and each report saves as a PDF.
A severity band is a screening result, not a diagnosis. Clinical judgment and a follow-up interview decide what the score means for a particular client.
Questions
Can I send the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 together?
Yes. You can assign several measures in one patient link, and each one is scored by its own published rules.
Is a high PHQ-9 total a diagnosis of depression?
No. A high total places the answers in a more severe band. A clinician makes any diagnosis after a full evaluation.
Scores and reports describe responses. They are not a diagnosis.