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October 3, 2025

When “Bothered by” Means “Often”: Evidence for Misinterpretation of the Patient Health Questionnaire

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Authors

MPMargarita PanayiotouJRJosip RazumGEGudrun Eisele

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Overview

Analysis reveals misinterpretation of PHQ instructions in community and clinical samples, questioning validity of depression measures.

Key Points

  • Misinterpretation of PHQ instructions raises validity concerns, affecting depression assessment outcomes.
  • Only 54.7% of participants on MTurk interpreted the PHQ correctly when assessing their symptoms and bothersome aspects.
  • Data was collected from a general population sample and a clinical sample, revealing variant interpretations of PHQ instructions.
  • Findings highlight the potential for inaccurate assessments in both research and clinical decision-making based on PHQ validity.

Cite This Study

Panayiotou et al. (2025) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/68e034fdf0e39f13e7fa34behttps://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/jcsq8_v3
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Also Consider

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

  1. 1Experienced, bothered by, or both: People differ in how they understand the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) items2025
  2. 2Why are we still using the PHQ-9? A Historical Review and Psychometric Evaluation of Measurement Invariance2025
  3. 3Reliability and cross-group equivalence of the 8-item version of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8) to screen for depression in adults with and without chronic pain: a nationally representative U.S. population study2025
  4. 4Measuring Depression and Anxiety With 4 Items? Adaptation of the PHQ-4 to Increase Its Sensitivity to Subclinical Variability2025
  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 …2025