PHQ-9 Test
A gentle two-week check-in that shows how your days have been sitting with you and helps put it into words.
≈5 min Questions: 24
Know that feeling when everything takes more out of you than it should? This test is not out to judge you; it shows how the last two weeks have sat with you, from mood to sleep to focus. Pick the answer closest to right now, even when none fits exactly. It takes about five minutes, and at the end you get a description of where things stand. What would it change to see it named plainly?
PHQ-9 Test
Even Keel
Feeling fine can feel suspicious. Sometimes it is simply fine.
You keep checking yourself for cracks. A low afternoon or a broken night makes you wonder whether the good stretch was an illusion.
Staying alert like this is care that learned to keep watch.
Low afternoons and broken nights visit every week. A house on an ordinary evening creaks a little and stays a home. Your answers put signs of depression at a minimal level for these two weeks.
The test cannot see what came before or what follows, only this window. A calm stretch deserves to be enjoyed as it is.
One small step: text someone close one thing from today that you enjoyed.
StillNormal
Maryna Lyadneva psychologist
PHQ-9 Test
Even Keel
Feeling fine can feel suspicious. Sometimes it is simply fine.
You keep checking yourself for cracks. A low afternoon or a broken night makes you wonder whether the good stretch was an illusion.
Staying alert like this is care that learned to keep watch.
This is my result. What will the test show you?
Take the test · stillnormal.com
PHQ-9 Test
It Adds Up
Why do fine days feel expensive? Managing has a price.
You answer messages, cook, show up. It just takes more out of you, or gives less back, than it used to.
Noticing the cost is accuracy, not complaining.
Think of carrying a full glass of water across a room: from outside it looks like walking, and inside every step is careful. That is how these days can work.
Mild signs of depression appear in some areas, yet most of your time stays manageable, and that is a real strength. What cannot be seen is whether this is a passing stretch or something more settled.
Being tired from the carrying is a fair reason to go gently.
One small step: write down one thing that cost more effort today than it looked.
StillNormal
Maryna Lyadneva psychologist
PHQ-9 Test
It Adds Up
Why do fine days feel expensive? Managing has a price.
You answer messages, cook, show up. It just takes more out of you, or gives less back, than it used to.
Noticing the cost is accuracy, not complaining.
This is my result. What will the test show you?
Take the test · stillnormal.com
PHQ-9 Test
Several at Once
You are not lazy. Several things are weighing at once.
You lose the thread in a conversation, sleep badly that night, then wake up already low.
Slowing down while several things pull at once is what a stretched mind does, and it deserves patience.
Like weather that shifts through a day, a bright hour can sit right beside a cloudy one. Signs of depression touch mood, sleep and focus together in your answers, somewhere between manageable and marked. It shows in your routines and in your closeness with others, without running them.
Nothing in this makes the heavy days smaller than they feel.
One small step: put on one song and listen to it through.
StillNormal
Maryna Lyadneva psychologist
PHQ-9 Test
Several at Once
You are not lazy. Several things are weighing at once.
You lose the thread in a conversation, sleep badly that night, then wake up already low.
Slowing down while several things pull at once is what a stretched mind does, and it deserves patience.
This is my result. What will the test show you?
Take the test · stillnormal.com
PHQ-9 Test
Stretched Thin
Getting through a day takes real work. That alone is tiring.
Small tasks now need a run-up. You put off the reply you owe and stand a long while at the sink.
Effort this heavy is real work, and every day you get through is effort spent.
Your answers point to signs of depression in most areas on most days. Think of a phone on power-saving mode: everything still works, only dimmer and slower.
Talking with a psychologist is a reasonable, ordinary next step. It can help make sense of whether this points to depression or partly to something else, since a loss or a punishing season of life can look much the same in answers like these.
Whatever lies behind it, the effort you put into ordinary days deserves respect.
One small step: rinse one cup and set it on the rack.
StillNormal
Maryna Lyadneva psychologist
PHQ-9 Test
Stretched Thin
Getting through a day takes real work. That alone is tiring.
Small tasks now need a run-up. You put off the reply you owe and stand a long while at the sink.
Effort this heavy is real work, and every day you get through is effort spent.
This is my result. What will the test show you?
Take the test · stillnormal.com
PHQ-9 Test
Running on Empty
You have been carrying a great deal. Tired is the honest word.
Work, a conversation, even getting dressed asks for more than you seem to have.
What looks like withdrawal from outside is often a mind saving what little is left, like a lamp turned to its lowest setting.
Signs of depression sit at a pronounced level in your answers, across nearly every area. The test only sees how this echoes through the last two weeks. The whole picture is something a psychologist can see properly.
People come to psychologists with exactly this often, and there are ways of working with it.
One small step: ask a psychologist for a first conversation today.
StillNormal
Maryna Lyadneva psychologist
PHQ-9 Test
Running on Empty
You have been carrying a great deal. Tired is the honest word.
Work, a conversation, even getting dressed asks for more than you seem to have.
What looks like withdrawal from outside is often a mind saving what little is left, like a lamp turned to its lowest setting.
This is my result. What will the test show you?
Take the test · stillnormal.com Maryna Lyadneva psychologist
How this test works
Where the questions come from, what the scale rests on, and why the result is not a diagnosis.
The test measures how marked self-reported signs of depression have been over the last two weeks, across mood, interest, self-worth, sleep, appetite, energy, concentration and physical slowing or restlessness.
Methodology
A result here comes from one sitting of self-report, so it shows a snapshot and says nothing about the weeks before or after. Its score bands were cut for this test alone. Research on questionnaires of this kind has found no single sharp dividing line, and a loss, a punishing season of life or another condition can produce similar answers.
The questions cover mood, energy, sleep and appetite, concentration and decisions, the way the body moves, and how much interest and self-worth remain. Each area gets three questions. Answers add up to one total, and a higher total means the signs are more marked.
The test was built independently on public research into depression symptoms. It is not the PHQ-9 questionnaire that some readers know by name: the questions, the length and the thresholds are its own, and one area of that questionnaire is deliberately not reproduced here.
For background on how screening questionnaires differ from diagnosis, MedlinePlus offers a short explainer. The NIMH page on finding help lists where to turn.
This test is not a diagnostic tool and no replacement for a specialist. It does not diagnose depression or any other condition, does not confirm or rule one out, and does not estimate the chance of one. What it reflects is a self-report of the last two weeks. Diagnosis belongs to a qualified specialist, who uses a clinical interview and personal history and applies the criteria. The test gives no clinical score.
Questions
Can this test tell me whether I have depression?
No. What it offers is a look at how the last two weeks have gone, filled in alone at a screen, and a diagnosis cannot rest on that. A qualified professional reaches one by talking with a person and learning their history. The second link in the methodology section shows where to look for that conversation.
Can I take it alone, with nobody guiding me?
Yes, it was made for exactly that: one person, start to finish, no helper needed. A conversation with a professional stays a sensible idea at any result, high or low.
Is this the same as the PHQ-9?
No, and it should not be mistaken for it. A reader who knows that questionnaire would find similar ground here, worded differently, with a different number of questions and its own thresholds. The result belongs to this test and is never a result on that questionnaire.
How is this different from an anxiety test?
Depression and anxiety often travel close together, yet they are separate territories. Everything here is built around signs of depression, so anxiety is left to tests made for it. No comparison or equivalence with any other questionnaire is claimed.
How accurate is a test like this?
Treat the result as a prompt for reflection rather than a measurement. Nobody has checked this test separately against professional assessment. Questionnaires of this general type have been studied widely and match professionals reasonably well but not perfectly, and even that research finds no exact cutoff.
Sources
- Kroenke K, Spitzer RL, Williams JBW. "The PHQ-9: validity of a brief depression severity measure." J Gen Intern Med. 2001;16(9):606-13. doi:10.1046/j.1525-1497.2001.016009606.x.
- Levis B, Benedetti A, Thombs BD, on behalf of the DEPRESsion Screening Data (DEPRESSD) Collaboration. "Accuracy of Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) for screening to detect major depression: individual participant data meta-analysis." BMJ. 2019;365:l1476. doi:10.1136/bmj.l1476.
- Bennabi D, et al. "Psychomotor Retardation in Depression: A Systematic Review of Diagnostic, Pathophysiologic, and Therapeutic Implications." Biomed Res Int. 2013;2013:158746. doi:10.1155/2013/158746.
- The Open University. OpenLearn. "Exploring depression: the diagnosis of depression."
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Where the questions come from, what the scale rests on, and why the result is not a diagnosis.