Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2)

Symptom screening and measurement; requires clinical interpretation

Reference information · Questionnaire

Field	Instrument context
Version	Standard adult English; University of Washington source wording
Population	Adults
Respondent	Self-report
Recall period	Past 2 weeks
Purpose	Symptom screening and measurement; requires clinical interpretation

Assessment tool

Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered by the following problems?

01 Little interest or pleasure in doing things

Not at all0Several days1More than half the days2Nearly every day3

02 Feeling down, depressed or hopeless

Not at all0Several days1More than half the days2Nearly every day3

Responses stay in this page’s memory. Reset or leave the page to clear them. No patient identifiers are collected.

Interpretation & limitations

Higher scores reflect greater reported symptom burden; results do not establish a diagnosis.
Use clinical judgment, functional impact, history and clinical interview alongside the score.
All scored items must be answered; missing responses are not zero and no total is produced for an incomplete form.
The cutoff of 3 is a screening threshold, not a symptom-severity band. A positive screen warrants further clinical evaluation; consider the full PHQ-9.
A low score does not rule out a mental health condition or establish safety.
This adult English version is not PHQ-A or an independently validated translation.
No automatic diagnosis, medication change or declaration of safety may be generated.

References · 2

University of Washington National HIV Curriculum: Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (PHQ-2)
Pfizer: free public access to PHQ and GAD assessment tools · Pfizer released PHQ and GAD questionnaires without copyright restriction and at no charge. Preserve developer attribution; Drs. Robert L. Spitzer, Janet B.W. Williams, Kurt Kroenke and colleagues, with an educational grant from Pfizer Inc.