What Happens During a Depression Screening?
Depression screenings are given in a variety of healthcare settings, such as a primary care doctor’s office, a psychiatric clinic, or a therapy office. Wherever you usually receive healthcare treatment is potentially the same place where you will also be screened for depression.
“Depression screenings can be performed by your primary care provider, a licensed therapist, social worker, professional counselor, psychiatrist, psychologist, or psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner,” says Ackerman.
The term “screening” may sound scary and a little intimidating, but a depression screening simply involves answering a set of questions, either on paper or out loud to a healthcare provider in a private setting.
There are a few different evidence-based scales (or sets of questions) used to assess people for depressive symptoms, such as the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), or the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAM-D). While these questionnaires are available online, they’re meant to be administered and interpreted by a mental health professional.
They’re all used to diagnose depression and to determine the severity of symptoms, so they can be used interchangeably depending on the preference of your healthcare provider. Each scale focuses on a few main themes.
“The questions during a depression screening may vary but typically focus on a person’s mood, energy level, sleep patterns, appetite, focus, and thoughts of self-harm or suicide,” says Brent Nelson, MD , an adult interventional psychiatrist and chief innovation and optimization officer at PrairieCare in St. Paul, Minnesota.
The questions are often provided in a self-report format with a numerical scale to help identify the severity of each symptom, says Ackerman. Here’s is one example from the PHQ-9:
“Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following problems?”
- Little interest or pleasure in doing things
It asks you to choose from the following answers:
- not at all (0)
- several days (1)
- more than half the days (2)
- nearly every day (3)
“The scores are added up at the end to determine if you have depression and how severe it is,” says Ackerman.
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