Depression self-Assessment Questions - Ask before you decide “I’m Depressed”

“I was so depressed yesterday, I can’t tell you.”We are hearing such statements more and more. As awareness about mental health increases, we have also been hearing terms like depressed and anxious often being misused, or used casually. However, depression is more than a fleeting emotional state. It is a mental health condition that requires support and care.

Being “depressed” is more than feeling sad, and may come with some other symptoms that impair your functioning and overall health. Understanding Depression Self-Assessment QuestionsDepression is one of the most commonly diagnosed mental health concerns and is often called the ‘common cold of mental health’. Globally, 5% of adults experience depression.

While symptoms may vary, mental health professionals look out for the following signs of depression, persisting over 2 weeks:

• Persistently low mood or feelings of sadness 
• Hopelessness about the future 
• Loss of interest in activities once enjoyable 
• Significant weight changes (loss or gain)
• Significant disturbance in sleep (oversleeping or insomnia) 
• Lack of self-care 
• Fatigue or extreme tiredness 
• Difficulty in concentration or other tasks that require other executive function  
• Suicidal ideation 

Sometimes one can experience one or more of these symptoms and that may or may not be depression. For example, significant changes in sleep can also occur with anxiety. A diagnosis of depression always appears with a depressed mood alongside two or more of the other symptoms.You can self-assess using some questions and tools that help with preliminary screening, i.e., an initial understanding of your symptoms and severity to see if they demand further assessment.

Sometimes one can experience one or more of these symptoms and that may or may not be depression. For example, significant changes in sleep can also occur with anxiety. A diagnosis of depression always appears with a depressed mood alongside two or more of the other symptoms.You can self-assess using some questions and tools that help with preliminary screening, i.e., an initial understanding of your symptoms and severity to see if they demand further assessment. 

Disclaimer: While screening tests are also available as self-assessment tools, which will be shared below, it’s important to recognize that these questions only help identify symptoms and do not confirm a diagnosis. Always consult with a mental health professional for mental health concerns and related support, including a formal diagnosis and treatment. 

How to Use Depression Self-Assessment Questions

The Patient Health Questionnaire or the PHQ-9 is a screening tool to identify and monitor depressive symptoms and severity. It invites reflection for self-assessment of depression and related symptoms. However, the presence of depressive symptoms alone is not an indication of a depressive disorder.

Think of it this way: when you feel like you’re burning up, you use a thermometer to verify if you have a fever or not. The persistence of fever over time gives you an idea if it’s from exhaustion, viral or even a symptom of some undiagnosed illness. It allows you to monitor your temperature and consider when to visit the doctor. 

Similarly, depressive symptoms can co-occur with other mental health concerns or illnesses and are not diagnosed by themselves. For example, people living with Bipolar Disorder, a mental health condition characterised by extreme moods, may experience episodes of both depression and mania. 

Hence, the PHQ helps to identify symptoms, but a only a mental health professional can assess whether a diagnosis of depression is warranted or not. 

It is essential to be honest while answering the questions on the PHQ-9 because they can assist you in explaining your personal experience to your care provider. Plus, there is no right or wrong answer because someone’s experience cannot be wrong or right, it just is.

Mental Health Resources

While a screening tool may help you make sense of your immediate experience, if you are feeling particularly distressed or are not able to cope,  here are some resources that can help you feel better: 

Seeking professional help

Professional help, such as meeting a psychologist, whether offline or online, can be helpful in times of distress, with or without a diagnosis. Mave’s very own Therapy Club - India’s largest mental health platform provides access to over 1500+ mental health professionals. 

Helplines

Helplines can also be a useful resource. Here are a few you can consider reaching out to:

1. TeleMANAS helpline: 1-8008914416/ 14416
2. Sumaitri Helpline: 011 23389090, 01146018404, 9315767849 (Mon-Fri - 2 pm-10pm) (Sat-Sun 10 am-10 pm)
3. NIMHANS Centre for well-being Helpline: 08026685948, 9480829670

Common Response Options Explained

The PHQ-9 helps with depression assessment by giving ratings from a scale of 0 to 3. The range is from “Not at all” to “Nearly every day.” Responses in the PHQ-9 help one to understand what kinds of symptoms are present. Specifically if 5 or more of the 9 depressive symptoms exist, the tool may indicate clinical depression. 

1. Not at all (0): 

This is a fairly easy to one to understand. From the 9 questions, if any of these symptoms have not occured for you at all, on any of the days, in the past 2 weeks, you can safely choose this option. 

2. Several Days (1): 

You may not be feeling the symptom each day, but it is possible to feel it on some days. For example, in PHQ-9 the fourth question is related to feeling tired or having little energy. It is possible that on some days you feel you have an adequate amount of energy, but on other days feel like you can’t get out of bed. 

3. More than half the days (2): 

The symptom may be present for longer than several days in the past 2 weeks. For example, you may not have sleep disturbances every single day but we can consider 8 or 9 days out of 14 days to be more than half the days. In this case, it would be appropriate to choose this answer to report about the sleep disturbances. 

 4. Nearly every day (3): 

As the criteria suggests, the symptom at hand has been persistent for almost every day if not all of 2 weeks. For example, if you have been feeling worthless nearly constantly for the last two weeks, this would be an apporpriate option to choose from the others. 

#10 Depression Self-assessment Questions You Should Understand. 

These ratings will make more sense as we dive into the self-assesmment questions on in the PHQ-9. There are 10 questions in total. While the first 9 help one understand the symptoms, the last question aims to understand the difficulty these symptoms have caused in your personal life. 

The PHQ - 9 opens with the larger question, “Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following problems?” and then gives the following 9 statements to consider:

Question 1: Little interest or pleasure in doing things: 

It is possible that you have noticed a gradual decline in activities that were once pleasurable or you loved to do as part of your routine. For example, if you would take out 15 minutes to paint everyday, and are noticing that in the last two weeks, even if you paint, it doesn’t bring a sense of contentment. It could also be true that you rather feel “nothing” when doing such activities.

Question 2: Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless: 

We all face problems from time to time and it’s okay to feel bogged down sometimes. However, the question here is inviting you to reflect the pervasiveness of your feelings. How often do you feel this way, and are you able to get out of this state?  

Question 3: Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much:

Many of us doomscroll on Instagram or other social media before falling asleep, which can affect our sleep cycle in different ways. However, the emphasises here is on the word “trouble.”Notice if you have wanted to fall asleep but just couldn’t, by any means possible. Or maybe you fell asleep but wake up so often that you don’t feel rested. It could also be that you sleep long enough or more than needed , and still, you are left feeling like you need to sleep more.  

Question 4: Feeling tired or having little energy:

All of us may feel tired after a hard day at work, or commuting through the metro every single day. However, the feeling of tiredness or little to no energy is different here. It particularly refers to feeling exhausted even at times when you have rested or when one hasn’t done many energy-consuming tasks.

Question 5: Poor appetite or overeating:

A lot of times depression affects our appetite. While we may be known to occasionaly binge eat or forget to eat, poor appetite or not feeling hungry at all, even when one hasn’t eaten, or binge eating even when one has eaten because we don’t feel full can be indicators to consider while answering this self-assessment question.

Question 6: Feeling bad about yourself or that you are a failure or have let yourself or your family down:

We may feel bad about ourselves when we get a bad grade, or even when we let someone down. However, it is possible that you feel badly about yourself to the point of perceiving yourself as a failure – without any reason. This may not always be apparent, and may even sound confusing. However, a key indicator is when no one is really upset with us, and instead of trying to understand what’s happening here, we immediately feel badly about ourselves thinking we are not worthy of love or affection of those around us.

Question 7: Trouble concentrating on things, such as reading the newspaper or watching television:

You may find yourself feeling like you’re processing things slower than usual. It could also be that even though you’re trying to concentrate, it is getting difficult to pay attention.

Question 8: Moving or speaking so slowly that other people could have noticed. Or the opposite - being so fidgety or restless that you have been moving around a lot more than usual:

You may have experienced feeling restless to the point that you are not able to stay seated or you feel so slow that people notice that they either can’t fully comprehend what you’re saying, or feel your volume is too slow.

Question 9: Thoughts that you would be better off dead, or of hurting yourself:

Though this is just one question, the questionnaire puts weight on this as this symptom alone is concerning. If you feel this way, reach out to a mental health professional to help understand your concerns and work through this feeling. 

The last question below, a little different from the above, helps understand the impact of these symptoms.

Question 10: If you checked off any problems, how difficult have problems made it for you to do your work, take care of things at home, or get along with other people?

The emphasis is on how difficult have ANY of these problems been for you to navigate. This include doing your work, caring for yourself and things at home, or even getting along with other people. 

Importance of Professional Help

You may wonder, ‘if I have filled this questionnaire and there is the indication of depression, why do I need to go to a professional to confirm?’ While this tool is helpful to identify and monitor symptoms, it is only a mental health professional, who can confirm the diagnosis of depression. As mentioned above, depression can occur as a symptom to other conditions as well. Furthermore, some symptoms need to be persistenly present with other symptoms which is understood only through the expertise of a professional who shall talk to you in detail to fully make sense of your self-reported assessment. 

If you’re in distress, you can reach out for therapy from a psychologist or seek prescription medicine support from a psychiatrist. You can also join Mave’s 12-week program for holistic health which is proven to deliver long-lasting results by working on your mental health, physical health and brain health. 

Know what not to say to the therapist

Conclusion

Self-assessment screening questionnaires like the PHQ-9 are available for individual use to identify the symptoms of depression and its severity. While it may give us some insight, a mental health professional is better able to help us make sense of these symptoms. Knowledge of these symptoms allows us to seek appropriate help, whether toward further assessment or treatment in terms of therapy or even medication.

If you’re interested to know more about depression and mental health, you can read more blogs at Mave. 

Citations 

1. Konttinen, H., Van Strien, T., Männistö, S., Jousilahti, P., & Haukkala, A. (2019). Depression, emotional eating and long-term weight changes: a population-based prospective study. ˜the œInternational Journal of Behavioural Nutrition and Physical Activity, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12966-019-0791-8
2. Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R. L., & Williams, J. B. W. (2001). The PHQ-9. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 16(9), 606–613. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2001.016009606.x
3. Mave. (2024, May 6). Major Depressive Disorder [Clinical Depression]: Types, symptoms & treatments in 2024. MAVE HEALTH PRIVATE LIMITED. https://www.mavehealth.com/blogs/major-depressive-disorder-types-symptoms-treatments-clinical-depression
4. Mave Health | Care Program. (n.d.). MAVE HEALTH PRIVATE LIMITED. https://www.mavehealth.com/program
5. Pfizer Inc. (2005). PHQ-9 Patient Depression questionnaire. https://med.stanford.edu/fastlab/research/imapp/msrs/_jcr_content/main/accordion/accordion_content3/download_256324296/file.res/PHQ9%20id%20date%2008.03.pdf
6. Therapy Club. (n.d.). https://therapyclub.mavehealth.com/