Table 8:

Advantages and Disadvantages of Depression and Anxiety Scales

Scale	Advantages	Disadvantages
PHQ-9	Brief; includes the key content areas for the formal diagnostic criteria Includes a question on suicidality supporting concurrent screening for depression and suicide risk	Some overlap with symptoms of inflammatory disorders (lacking energy, sleep, and appetite difficulties)
PHQ-2	Briefest of all depression measures	Substantial floor effects
HADS	Brief Evaluates depression and anxiety concurrently Designed for use in medically ill populations, so it minimizes overlapping physical symptoms	HADS-D and HADS-A had lowest sensitivity relative to other measures
Kessler-6	Brief Sensitive to any form of psychologic distress	Does not distinguish between depression or anxiety, which may be relevant to treatment
PROMIS Depression	Brief; 4- and 6-item versions also available Normative data from community samples available; other languages available Can be scored even with missing responses for some items	Floor effect Response pattern scoring for research purposes can be time-consuming, use of simple scale totals more feasible for clinical setting
GAD-7	Brief Focuses on a common anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder	May not capture anxiety related to anxiety disorders other than generalized anxiety disorder Possibly only moderate test-retest reliability
OASIS	Briefest anxiety measure Captures severity of any anxiety disorder	Floor effect Response options are complex Possibly only moderate test-retest reliability
PROMIS Anxiety	Brief; 4- and 6-item versions also available Normative data from community samples available; other languages available Can be scored even with missing responses for some items	Response pattern scoring for research purposes can be time-consuming, use of simple scale totals more feasible for clinical setting