Patient Health Questionnaire-15

PHQ-15

health sciencespsychologyFree for research use

A 15-item measure of somatic symptom burden covering the most prevalent physical complaints in primary care, over the past four weeks.

Items

Response format

3-point severity scale (0-2)

Version

1.0

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Somatic symptom severity was measured with the PHQ-15 (Kroenke et al., 2002), a 15-item scale with acceptable internal consistency (α ≈ .80); scores of 5, 10, and 15 mark low, medium, and high symptom burden.

Citing this in a methods section? This scale spans more than one discipline, so the style depends on where you publish — see the APA 7 or Vancouver guides, or compare all six citation styles.

Reliability & validation

Validation population

Primary care and obstetrics-gynaecology patients (Kroenke et al., 2002)

Cronbach's α

0.8

Response anchors

Not bothered at all · Bothered a little · Bothered a lot

Known limitations

Measures symptom burden regardless of medical cause, so an elevated score does not imply a somatoform disorder; one item (menstrual problems) is omitted for men, slightly changing the maximum.

Original citation

Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R. L., Williams, J. B. W. (2002). The PHQ-15: Validity of a new measure for evaluating the severity of somatic symptoms. Psychosomatic Medicine, 64(2), 258-266.

https://doi.org/10.1097/00006842-200203000-00008

Questions researchers ask

What does the PHQ-15 measure?

A 15-item measure of somatic symptom burden covering the most prevalent physical complaints in primary care, over the past four weeks.

How many items does the PHQ-15 have?

The Patient Health Questionnaire-15 (PHQ-15) has 15 items.

Is the PHQ-15 free to use?

The PHQ-15 is free to use for non-commercial academic research. You don't need to pay a license fee, but you should always cite the original publication.

Is the PHQ-15 reliable?

Validation studies report Cronbach's α of 0.8. See the reliability section for the population studied and full statistics.

Who developed the PHQ-15, and how do I cite it?

Kroenke, K., Spitzer, R. L., Williams, J. B. W. (2002). The PHQ-15: Validity of a new measure for evaluating the severity of somatic symptoms. Psychosomatic Medicine, 64(2), 258-266. https://doi.org/10.1097/00006842-200203000-00008

Reference only

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Library entry verified July 2026. Metadata is provided for reference; item wording is available inside Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing.