evidence·published ·every citation last verified

the other questionnaires: who wrote them, who paid, and which prescriptions they gate

the phq-9 is the one you have probably filled in. it is one of about twenty. between a person and a psychiatric prescription there is nearly always a form, and almost nobody knows who wrote it, who paid for it, or whether the clinic paid to use it.

this page is the companion to the phq-9 page, and it asks the same three questions of the rest: who wrote it, who paid where the record says, and where it sits in a rule. thirty sources. funding is read from the paper, the full text, or the form's own footer, or it says unknown. we do not infer a funder from which company sells the drug the form leads to.

the pattern, in one paragraph

what wins is short, self-report, and free to reproduce. the forms that became payment measures and clinic-tablet defaults share those three properties; the ones that are sold or licensed, however well validated, did not. the founders are mostly academics with public money behind them, the nimh above all[11],[16],[17],[29]. the industry footers are the exception, and where they exist they are on this page in the record's own words.

depression

phq-2. the first two phq-9 items, validated by the same three authors in the same 6,000-patient sample[1]. a positive phq-2 is what triggers the phq-9 in the medicare screening measure. funding is not stated in the record we read; the phq family's pfizer grant is documented on the phq-9 page.

ham-d and madrs. the two clinician-rated scales that define response and remission in most antidepressant trials. hamilton published his in 1960[3]. montgomery and åsberg built theirs in 1979 from 106 patients' ratings, keeping “the 10 items which showed the largest changes with treatment” across 64 patients “participating in studies of four different antidepressant drugs”: a scale, in its own words, “designed to be particularly sensitive to treatment effects”[4]. that is the endpoint the fda reads when it approves an antidepressant. neither paper states a funder.

bdi-ii. beck's 1961 inventory[5] is the counter-case. its current version is a pearson product, kits “from $122.90” and forms “from $3.90” on the day we read the store page[6]. it is well validated and it is in no payment measure, because a payer cannot require a form a clinic must buy.

epds. the edinburgh postnatal scale, validated in 1987 in 84 mothers against a standardised interview[7]; the pregnancy and postpartum screen most obstetric practices use. funder not stated in the record.

bipolar disorder

mdq. the mood disorder questionnaire, validated in 2000 in 198 patients at five mood-disorder clinics against a blinded telephone interview[8]. two of its authors are robert spitzer and janet williams, the phq authors[8]. the form's footer reads “© 2000 by The University of Texas Medical Branch. Reprinted with permission” and warns it “is designed for screening purposes only and is not to be used as a diagnostic tool”; its acknowledgement names a committee that includes the national alliance for the mentally ill, the national depressive and manic-depressive association and the nimh[9]. who paid for the development is not on the form and the journal page is behind a subscription, so it is unknown here[8],[9]. a positive mdq is very often the step before a mood stabiliser or an antipsychotic.

ymrs. the 1978 young mania rating scale, clinician-rated, the trial endpoint for mania drugs[10]. funder not stated.

adhd

asrs. the adult adhd self-report scale, “developed in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Workgroup on Adult ADHD”[12]. the 2005 validation paper carries an nimh grant[11]. the author affiliations printed on the publisher's page include “Eli Lilly and Company, Global Health Outcomes”[11]; lilly sold atomoxetine, an adult adhd drug. an affiliation is not a funding statement, and the funding statement was not readable without a subscription, so that is exactly as far as this page goes.

vanderbilt. the parent and teacher scales that gate most paediatric stimulant starts, validated with an agency for healthcare research and quality grant in a referred population of 243 children[13], distributed free by nichq.

anxiety, trauma, ocd

gad-2 and gad-7. the same group as the phq, validated in 15 primary care clinics with 965 interviewed patients[2]; the gad-7's pfizer attribution is on the phq-9 page.

pcl-5. the ptsd checklist, “developed by staff at VA's National Center for PTSD and is in the public domain and not copyrighted”; the va puts a cutoff “between 31-33” for probable ptsd and says “The gold standard for diagnosing PTSD is a structured clinical interview”[15]. its founding psychometric paper was in college students, not veterans[14].

y-bocs. the clinician-rated ocd scale, nimh-funded, validated across four raters and 40 patients[16].

suicide risk: the one the regulator wrote into a rule

c-ssrs. the columbia scale was developed by columbia, penn and pittsburgh “supported by the National Institute of Mental Health” and is “available free of charge for use in community and healthcare settings, as well as in federally funded or nonprofit research”[18]. the fda's 2012 draft guidance on assessing suicidal ideation and behaviour in drug trials names it as “one of several available suicidal ideation and behavior instruments” that “would be acceptable for the purpose of these studies”; the document is marked “Contains Nonbinding Recommendations”[19]. in practice, every psychiatric drug trial uses it.

sleep and alcohol

isi. the insomnia severity index, validated in 145 patients as a research outcome measure and adopted as the clinic screen before a hypnotic[20]. funder not stated. epworth. the sleepiness scale, 180 adults in the founding paper[21]; its owner's site states “A license is needed to use it, whether or not license fees are payable”[22], the licensed counter-case.

audit and audit-c. the alcohol screen came from a six-country who project, ten items chosen from a 150-item schedule given to 1,888 primary care attenders[23],[30]; the three-item audit-c was validated in 447 veterans, men only[24]. medicare has covered annual alcohol screening since october 2011 and, in its own words, “does not identify specific alcohol misuse screening tools. Rather, the decision to use a specific tool is at the discretion of the clinician”[25]. that is the opposite of the depression measure, which names the phq-9.

after the prescription: the aims

one form on this page is for people already on a drug. the abnormal involuntary movement scale is the tardive dyskinesia exam “widely recommended for periodic screening” of people on antipsychotics; the practice paper that explains how to administer it notes that “few guidelines exist about how to use the examination in clinical practice” and that it “is not specific for tardive dyskinesia”[26]. it is a 1976 nimh instrument in the public domain. if you are on an antipsychotic and nobody has done one, that is a question.

the attempts to replace the patchwork

three instruments were built to be the one form for everything. the american psychiatric association's dsm-5 cross-cutting symptom measure, reliability-tested in the dsm-5 field trials[27]. the nih's promis item banks, tested against the legacy scales with federal cooperative agreements[28]. and kessler's k6 and k10, built for the national health interview survey to track population distress, not to prescribe[29]. none has displaced the phq-9 in a payment measure. the one that did displace things was the free, industry-funded one.

what to ask when you are handed any of these

these are questions, not advice.

this is not medical advice. it is a summary of published research, it is not a diagnosis, and it is not a recommendation for or against any treatment — nobody here has met you. decisions about starting, changing or stopping a medication belong to you and a prescriber who knows your history. do not change a prescribed medication on the strength of a web page, this one included.

last verified . if a source is updated, corrected or retracted, this page gets changed and re-dated.

sources

primary sources only — no news write-ups, no secondary summaries. each was fetched and checked on the access date shown.

  1. [1] Kroenke K, Spitzer RL, Williams JB. The Patient Health Questionnaire-2: validity of a two-item depression screener. Medical Care, 2003. doi:10.1097/01.MLR.0000093487.78664.3C. PMID 14583691.

    criterion validation of the two-item screen in 6,000 patients across 8 primary care and 7 obstetrics-gynecology clinics, the PHQ-9 sample · n = 6,000 · evidence tier: strong · funding: unknown in the record we read; the PHQ family’s Pfizer educational grant is documented on the PHQ-9 page from the 2001 paper and the form’s own footer · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: the same authors and the same clinic sample as the PHQ-9; a positive PHQ-2 is a reason to give the PHQ-9, not a result in itself.

  2. [2] Kroenke K, Spitzer RL, Williams JB, Monahan PO, Löwe B. Anxiety disorders in primary care: prevalence, impairment, comorbidity, and detection. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2007. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-146-5-200703060-00004. PMID 17339617.

    criterion-standard study in 15 US primary care clinics; 965 randomly sampled patients completed the GAD-7 and a follow-up telephone interview; the GAD-2 is evaluated within it · n = 965 · evidence tier: strong · funding: unknown (not stated in the abstract we read) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: the same Spitzer/Williams/Kroenke group as the PHQ; the GAD-7’s own attribution line names the Pfizer grant (see the PHQ-9 page).

  3. [3] Hamilton M. A rating scale for depression. Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and Psychiatry, 1960. doi:10.1136/jnnp.23.1.56. PMID 14399272.

    the original clinician-rated scale, 1960; the record is a scanned article with no abstract · evidence tier: moderate · funding: unknown (no funding statement in a 1960 record) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: sixty-five years old and still the primary endpoint in many antidepressant trials; a clinician rates it, so it is rarely used in primary care prescribing.

  4. [4] Montgomery SA, Åsberg M. A new depression scale designed to be sensitive to change. British Journal of Psychiatry, 1979. doi:10.1192/bjp.134.4.382. PMID 444788.

    scale construction: 17 items chosen from 106 English and Swedish patients, then the 10 items that changed most across 64 patients in studies of four antidepressant drugs · n = 64 · evidence tier: moderate · funding: unknown (not stated in the abstract we read) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: by its own description it was built to be sensitive to drug treatment effects; that is a design goal, stated in the paper, and worth knowing when it is the endpoint of a drug trial.

  5. [5] Beck AT, Ward CH, Mendelson M, Mock J, Erbaugh J. An inventory for measuring depression. Archives of General Psychiatry, 1961. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1961.01710120031004. PMID 13688369.

    the original Beck Depression Inventory, 1961; no abstract in the record · evidence tier: moderate · funding: unknown (no funding statement in the record) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: the current BDI-II is a commercial product (source 6), which is the practical reason it lost to the free PHQ-9 in payment measures.

  6. [6] Pearson Assessments. BDI-2, Beck Depression Inventory, product listing. pearsonassessments.com, 2026.

    the publisher’s store page, read for price and licensing · evidence tier: strong · funding: n/a (commercial publisher) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: read on the verified date: starter and complete kits "from $122.90", test forms "from $3.90". prices change; the fact that it is sold does not.

  7. [7] Cox JL, Holden JM, Sagovsky R. Detection of postnatal depression. Development of the 10-item Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. British Journal of Psychiatry, 1987. doi:10.1192/bjp.150.6.782. PMID 3651732.

    validation in 84 mothers against Research Diagnostic Criteria from a standardised psychiatric interview · n = 84 · evidence tier: moderate · funding: unknown (not stated in the abstract we read) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: eighty-four women; the scale has been revalidated many times since, but the founding study is small.

  8. [8] Hirschfeld RM, Williams JB, Spitzer RL, Calabrese JR, Flynn L, Keck PE, Lewis L, McElroy SL, Post RM, Rapport DJ, Russell JM, Sachs GS, Zajecka J. Development and validation of a screening instrument for bipolar spectrum disorder: the Mood Disorder Questionnaire. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2000. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.157.11.1873. PMID 11058490.

    validation in 198 patients at five outpatient mood-disorder clinics against a blinded telephone SCID bipolar module · n = 198 · evidence tier: moderate · funding: unknown: the journal page was not readable without a subscription and neither PubMed nor Europe PMC record a funder. we do not assert who paid. · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: validated in mood-disorder clinics, where bipolar disorder is common; screens perform worse in general populations where it is rare. two of the authors, Williams and Spitzer, are the PHQ authors.

  9. [9] Hirschfeld RMA and committee (form footer). The Mood Disorder Questionnaire, the instrument, with scoring and acknowledgement. MDQ form as distributed by the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (mirror of the DBSA-distributed form), 2000.

    the form itself: 13 symptom items, two follow-ups, a family-history and a prior-diagnosis item, with the scoring rule and the committee acknowledgement · evidence tier: moderate · funding: no funder printed. the footer reads "© 2000 by The University of Texas Medical Branch. Reprinted with permission." the acknowledgement lists the committee: Hirschfeld (UTMB), Calabrese, Flynn (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill), Keck, Lewis (National Depressive and Manic-Depressive Association), Post (NIMH), Sachs, Spitzer, Williams, Zajecka · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: a third-party mirror of the form; the copyright line and committee list are quoted from it verbatim. the scoring text’s "seven out of ten… nine out of ten" is the form’s own summary of source 8.

  10. [10] Young RC, Biggs JT, Ziegler VE, Meyer DA. A rating scale for mania: reliability, validity and sensitivity. British Journal of Psychiatry, 1978. doi:10.1192/bjp.133.5.429. PMID 728692.

    the eleven-item clinician-rated mania scale, with inter-rater reliability and validation against a global rating and two other scales · evidence tier: moderate · funding: unknown (not stated in the abstract we read) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: the trial endpoint for mania drugs; clinician-rated, not a screen.

  11. [11] Kessler RC, Adler L, Ames M, Demler O, Faraone S, Hiripi E, Howes MJ, Jin R, Secnik K, Spencer T, Ustun TB, Walters EE. The World Health Organization Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS): a short screening scale for use in the general population. Psychological Medicine, 2005. doi:10.1017/s0033291704002892. PMID 15841682.

    concordance of the 18-item ASRS and the six-item screener with blind clinical diagnoses in a community sample, developed alongside the WHO CIDI revision · evidence tier: strong · funding: mixed, read from the record: an NIMH grant (U01-MH60220) is listed on PubMed and Europe PMC, and the author affiliations printed on the publisher’s page include "Eli Lilly and Company, Global Health Outcomes". the funding statement itself was not readable without a subscription. · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: an author affiliation is not a funding statement; it is printed here because it is on the paper, and the page does not claim more than that.

  12. [12] World Health Organization and the Workgroup on Adult ADHD (Adler L, Kessler RC, Spencer T). Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS-v1.1) Symptom Checklist, the instrument. ASRS-v1.1 form as distributed by the Attention Deficit Disorder Association, 2003.

    the form itself, with its development note and the workgroup named · evidence tier: moderate · funding: no funder printed on the form. it reads: "developed in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Workgroup on Adult ADHD that included the following team of psychiatrists and researchers", then names Adler, Kessler and Spencer · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: a third-party mirror of the form (the Harvard host returned errors on the verified date); the development note is quoted verbatim.

  13. [13] Wolraich ML, Lambert W, Doffing MA, Bickman L, Simmons T, Worley K. Psychometric properties of the Vanderbilt ADHD diagnostic parent rating scale in a referred population. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 2003. doi:10.1093/jpepsy/jsg046. PMID 14602846.

    psychometrics of the parent scale in 243 children from a longitudinal study of physician-teacher-parent communication about ADHD · n = 243 · evidence tier: moderate · funding: independent; Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality grant on the record · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: a referred (clinic) population; the teacher version was validated separately in 1998. free through NICHQ.

  14. [14] Blevins CA, Weathers FW, Davis MT, Witte TK, Domino JL. The Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5): Development and Initial Psychometric Evaluation. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 2015. doi:10.1002/jts.22059. PMID 26606250.

    two studies in trauma-exposed college students (N = 278 and N = 558), internal consistency, test-retest, convergent and discriminant validity · n = 278 · evidence tier: moderate · funding: unknown (not stated in the abstract we read); the instrument is a VA National Center for PTSD product (source 15) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: college students, not veterans or patients, in the founding psychometric paper.

  15. [15] US Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD. PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5), National Center for PTSD. ptsd.va.gov, 2026.

    the VA’s own instrument page: purposes, cut points and licensing · evidence tier: strong · funding: n/a (federal agency) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: quoted verbatim: "This measure was developed by staff at VA’s National Center for PTSD and is in the public domain and not copyrighted", and a cutoff "between 31-33 is indicative of probable PTSD across samples" while "The gold standard for diagnosing PTSD is a structured clinical interview".

  16. [16] Goodman WK, Price LH, Rasmussen SA, Mazure C, Fleischmann RL, Hill CL, Heninger GR, Charney DS. The Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale. I. Development, use, and reliability. Archives of General Psychiatry, 1989. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1989.01810110048007. PMID 2684084.

    clinician-rated ten-item scale; inter-rater reliability across four raters and 40 patients · n = 40 · evidence tier: moderate · funding: independent; NIMH grants on the record · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: the OCD trial endpoint; clinician-rated, forty patients in the founding study.

  17. [17] Posner K, Brown GK, Stanley B, Brent DA, Yershova KV, Oquendo MA, Currier GW, Melvin GA, Greenhill L, Shen S, Mann JJ. The Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale: initial validity and internal consistency findings from three multisite studies with adolescents and adults. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2011. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2011.10111704. PMID 22193671.

    validity and internal consistency across three multisite studies: adolescent suicide attempters (N = 124), a medication efficacy trial in depressed adolescents, and adult emergency-department patients · evidence tier: strong · funding: mixed, read from the full text: NIMH cooperative agreements and an American Foundation for Suicide Prevention grant funded the studies; "The data for the analysis of the escitalopram trial (study 2) were provided by Forest Laboratories, which did not participate in the data analysis"; and the lead author "is the director of the Center for Suicide Risk Assessment, which, as part of an effort to help execute the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s suicidality classification mandates, has received support from" a list of more than seventy companies including Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Forest, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Lilly USA, Lundbeck, Merck, Novartis, Otsuka, Pfizer, Roche, Sanofi-Aventis, Shire, Takeda and Wyeth. three authors receive royalties for the electronic version from ERT, Inc. · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: the disclosure describes support to the centre that runs the scale for trial sponsors who must use it, not payment for the scale’s creation; the page quotes it because the reader should know the scale sits at the centre of a regulatory market.

  18. [18] The Columbia Lighthouse Project. About the Columbia Protocol (C-SSRS). cssrs.columbia.edu, 2026.

    the scale’s own site, read for origin and licensing · evidence tier: moderate · funding: n/a; the page states the scale was developed by Columbia, Penn and Pittsburgh "supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)" · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: quoted verbatim: the protocol and training "are available free of charge for use in community and healthcare settings, as well as in federally funded or nonprofit research". the page is promotional in tone ("the most evidence-based tool of its kind") and is cited only for origin and licensing.

  19. [19] US Food and Drug Administration, Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. Guidance for Industry: Suicidal Ideation and Behavior: Prospective Assessment of Occurrence in Clinical Trials (draft guidance, revision 1). FDA guidance document, 2012.

    the regulator’s draft guidance on prospective suicidality assessment in drug trials; nonbinding · evidence tier: strong · funding: n/a (regulator) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: quoted verbatim: the C-SSRS is "one of several available suicidal ideation and behavior instruments" and "would be acceptable for the purpose of these studies". it is a draft, "Not for Implementation", and "Contains Nonbinding Recommendations"; in practice it is what sponsors use.

  20. [20] Bastien CH, Vallières A, Morin CM. Validation of the Insomnia Severity Index as an outcome measure for insomnia research. Sleep Medicine, 2001. doi:10.1016/s1389-9457(00)00065-4. PMID 11438246.

    internal consistency and concurrent validity in 145 insomnia patients, and sensitivity to change in a treatment study · n = 145 · evidence tier: moderate · funding: unknown (not stated in the abstract we read) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: built as a research outcome measure and adopted as a clinic screen; the founding sample is 145 people.

  21. [21] Johns MW. A new method for measuring daytime sleepiness: the Epworth sleepiness scale. Sleep, 1991. doi:10.1093/sleep/14.6.540. PMID 1798888.

    180 adults (30 controls, 150 sleep-disorder patients) rating the chance of dozing in eight situations · n = 180 · evidence tier: moderate · funding: unknown (not stated in the abstract we read) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: a sleepiness scale, not a psychiatric one; it is here because it is licensed rather than free (source 22), the counter-case to the PHQ.

  22. [22] Epworth Sleepiness Scale, official site. About the ESS (licensing). epworthsleepinessscale.com, 2026.

    the scale owner’s licensing page · evidence tier: moderate · funding: n/a (rights holder) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: quoted verbatim: "A license is needed to use it, whether or not license fees are payable" and "The copyright prohibits any changes to the ESS".

  23. [23] Saunders JB, Aasland OG, Babor TF, de la Fuente JR, Grant M. Development of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT): WHO Collaborative Project on Early Detection of Persons with Harmful Alcohol Consumption, II. Addiction, 1993. doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.1993.tb02093.x. PMID 8329970.

    a six-country WHO collaborative project; ten items selected from a 150-item schedule administered to 1,888 primary care attenders · n = 1,888 · evidence tier: strong · funding: World Health Organization collaborative project (from the title and abstract) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: built for primary care in six countries; the three-item AUDIT-C (source 24) is what most US clinics actually use.

  24. [24] Bush K, Kivlahan DR, McDonell MB, Fihn SD, Bradley KA. The AUDIT alcohol consumption questions (AUDIT-C): an effective brief screening test for problem drinking. Archives of Internal Medicine, 1998. doi:10.1001/archinte.158.16.1789. PMID 9738608.

    validation of the three consumption items in 447 patients from three Veterans Affairs general medical clinics, against interview · n = 447 · evidence tier: strong · funding: unknown in the abstract; a Veterans Affairs Ambulatory Care Quality Improvement Project study by its subtitle · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: male veterans only in the founding validation (women were excluded, n = 54).

  25. [25] Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. National Coverage Determination 210.8: Screening and Behavioral Counseling Interventions in Primary Care to Reduce Alcohol Misuse. Medicare Coverage Database, 2011.

    the coverage decision, effective 14 October 2011, that made annual alcohol screening and up to four counselling sessions a covered Medicare service · evidence tier: strong · funding: n/a (regulator) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: quoted verbatim: "CMS does not identify specific alcohol misuse screening tools. Rather, the decision to use a specific tool is at the discretion of the clinician". what the screen pays under the fee schedule was not read.

  26. [26] Munetz MR, Benjamin S. How to examine patients using the Abnormal Involuntary Movement Scale. Hospital & Community Psychiatry, 1988. doi:10.1176/ps.39.11.1172. PMID 2906320.

    practice guidance on administering the AIMS examination for tardive dyskinesia screening and follow-up · evidence tier: moderate · funding: unknown (not stated in the abstract we read); the AIMS itself is a 1976 NIMH instrument in the public domain, which this paper describes but which we could not fetch as a primary record · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: the authors’ own point is that the exam is "widely recommended" and "not specific for tardive dyskinesia"; it is a monitoring tool for people already on antipsychotics, not a screen.

  27. [27] Narrow WE, Clarke DE, Kuramoto SJ, Kraemer HC, Kupfer DJ, Greiner L, Regier DA. DSM-5 field trials in the United States and Canada, Part III: development and reliability testing of a cross-cutting symptom assessment for DSM-5. American Journal of Psychiatry, 2013. doi:10.1176/appi.ajp.2012.12071000. PMID 23111499.

    test-retest reliability of the cross-cutting measures at seven adult and four child sites in the DSM-5 field trials · evidence tier: moderate · funding: unknown in the abstract; the field trials were run by the American Psychiatric Association, the DSM’s publisher · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: the publisher’s attempt at one free instrument for everything; it has not displaced the PHQ-9 in any payment measure.

  28. [28] Cella D, Riley W, Stone A, Rothrock N, Reeve B, Yount S, et al.. The Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) developed and tested its first wave of adult self-reported health outcome item banks: 2005-2008. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 2010. doi:10.1016/j.jclinepi.2010.04.011. PMID 20685078.

    first large-scale testing of fourteen NIH item banks, including depression and anxiety, against legacy measures · evidence tier: strong · funding: independent; NIH cooperative agreements to a statistical centre and six research sites, stated in the full text · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: the federal attempt at replacing the patchwork; free, precise, and rarely the thing a clinic hands you.

  29. [29] Kessler RC, Andrews G, Colpe LJ, Hiripi E, Mroczek DK, Normand SL, Walters EE, Zaslavsky AM. Short screening scales to monitor population prevalences and trends in non-specific psychological distress. Psychological Medicine, 2002. doi:10.1017/s0033291702006074. PMID 12214795.

    development of the K10 and K6 for the US National Health Interview Survey, validated in a two-stage clinical reappraisal survey · n = 1,000 · evidence tier: strong · funding: independent; NIMH grants on the record · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: a population surveillance instrument, not a prescribing one; it is here so the reader can tell the two kinds apart.

  30. [30] World Health Organization. The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test: guidelines for use in primary care (WHO/MSD/MSB/01.6a). who.int, 2001.

    the WHO’s own publication page for the AUDIT manual · evidence tier: strong · funding: n/a (WHO) · accessed September 15, 2026

    the catch: read for provenance only: the AUDIT "was developed as a simple method of screening for excessive drinking" and is distributed with a brief-intervention manual.

questions

What screening tools are used to prescribe mental health medication?

For depression, the PHQ-2 and PHQ-9, with the EPDS in pregnancy and after birth. For anxiety, the GAD-2 and GAD-7. For bipolar disorder, the Mood Disorder Questionnaire. For adult ADHD the ASRS, and for children the Vanderbilt or Conners scales. For PTSD the PCL-5, for OCD the Y-BOCS, for insomnia the ISI and Epworth, for alcohol the AUDIT or AUDIT-C. The C-SSRS asks about suicide risk. Once someone is on an antipsychotic, the AIMS exam monitors for tardive dyskinesia. The clinician-rated HAM-D, MADRS and YMRS define response and remission in the trials that got the drugs approved.

Who paid for these questionnaires?

Mostly public bodies, where the record says at all: the NIMH (ASRS, Y-BOCS, C-SSRS, K6), AHRQ (Vanderbilt), NIH (PROMIS), the VA (PCL-5, AUDIT-C), the WHO (AUDIT, ASRS). The PHQ family was funded by a Pfizer educational grant, documented on its own page. The ASRS paper prints an Eli Lilly affiliation in its author list alongside its NIMH grant. The MDQ, EPDS, ISI, Epworth and the 1960s and 1970s clinician scales do not state a funder in the records we could read, so this page marks them unknown rather than guessing.

Which mental health questionnaires are free and which cost money?

Free and reproducible: the PHQ and GAD family, the MDQ (copyright University of Texas Medical Branch, reprinted with permission), the ASRS (WHO), the Vanderbilt (NICHQ), the PCL-5 (public domain, VA), the C-SSRS (free for community, healthcare and nonprofit or federally funded research), the AUDIT (WHO), the AIMS, the DSM-5 cross-cutting measure and PROMIS. Sold: the BDI-II, from Pearson, kits from $122.90 and forms from $3.90 on the day we read the page. Licensed: the Epworth, which requires a licence whether or not fees are payable. Free is the property that lets a form be printed on every clinic tablet and written into a payment measure.

Is the C-SSRS required by the FDA?

The FDA’s 2012 draft guidance on assessing suicidal ideation and behaviour in drug trials names the C-SSRS as one of several instruments that "would be acceptable for the purpose of these studies". It is a draft and nonbinding on paper; in practice it is what trial sponsors use. The scale’s validation paper discloses that the Columbia centre running it "as part of an effort to help execute the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s suicidality classification mandates, has received support from" more than seventy companies, and that three authors receive royalties on the electronic version.

What is the difference between the HAM-D, MADRS and PHQ-9?

The HAM-D (1960) and MADRS (1979) are rated by a clinician and are the endpoints in most antidepressant trials; the MADRS was, by its own paper’s description, built from the items that changed most in four antidepressant drug studies, to be sensitive to treatment. The PHQ-9 is a self-report screen that a patient fills in and that a payment measure can count. Trials define remission on the clinician scales; clinics and payers count it on the PHQ-9.

Does a positive screen on any of these mean I have the condition?

No. Every form on this page is a screen or a severity rating; the VA says it plainly for the PCL-5 (the gold standard "is a structured clinical interview"), the MDQ form says it is "not to be used as a diagnostic tool", and the PHQ-9 page shows the arithmetic: at a typical prevalence, roughly half of positive depression screens are not major depression. A positive screen is a reason for a conversation, not a diagnosis.

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