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July 22, 2025

Experienced, bothered by, or both: People differ in how they understand the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) items

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Authors

MPMargarita PanayiotouJRJosip RazumGEGudrun Eisele

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Overview

Research assesses interpretation of the Patient Health Questionnaire in different populations, indicating potential issues with how depression symptoms are evaluated.

Key Points

  • Majority of participants in both general and clinical samples misinterpret the PHQ instructions about depression symptoms.
  • Only 54.7% of MTurk and 15.5% of OPTIMA participants interpreted the PHQ correctly about being bothered by symptoms.
  • Data were collected from 503 general population and 349 clinical samples, highlighting the widespread misunderstanding of PHQ items.
  • Findings reveal concerns regarding the validity of the PHQ as an assessment tool for diagnosing depression.

Cite This Study

Panayiotou et al. (2025) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/689a061be6551bb0af8cd8ffhttps://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/jcsq8_v1
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Also Consider

Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context:

  1. 1When “Bothered by” Means “Often”: Evidence for Misinterpretation of the Patient Health Questionnaire2025
  2. 2Why are we still using the PHQ-9? A Historical Review and Psychometric Evaluation of Measurement Invariance2025 · 15 citations
  3. 3Measuring Depression and Anxiety With 4 Items? Adaptation of the PHQ-4 to Increase Its Sensitivity to Subclinical Variability2025
  4. 4Reliability and equivalence of the 8-item version of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8) to screen for depressive symptoms in adults with chronic pain: A representative U.S. population study2025 · 1 citations
  5. 5In this manuscript, we present the findings from our prospective diagnostic concordance study, which aimed to evaluate the validity and feasibility of a smartphone-based mood-tracking application compared to the standard PHQ-9 questionnaire. The study involved 60 participants, including individuals with Major Depressive Disorder and healthy controls, highlighting the utility of real-time mood monitoring in clinical practice. Key findings from our study include: Strong concordance between smartphone-derived mood ratings and PHQ-9 scores. Significant reduction in depressive symptoms as measured by PHQ-9 after consistent app usage. Positive user feedback on the feasibility and acceptability of the mood-tracking app, underscoring it (Preprint)2025