Effective screening can help clinicians better coordinate a patient’s mental and physical care and may lead to earlier connection to a mental health professional.1

Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9)
A standardized tool such as the PHQ-9 is often used to screen patients for depressive symptoms in primary care settings. The PHQ-9 is a multipurpose instrument used for screening, measuring, and monitoring the severity of depression.2
Compositive International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) 3.0
The clinician-administered CIDI 3.0 may also improve the efficiency in detecting bipolar disorder.3

General Anxiety Disorder 7 (GAD-7)
Anxiety disorder may be routinely assessed alongside mood symptoms in patients with bipolar disorder.4 The GAD-7 is a self-rated questionnaire used to screen for general anxiety disorder and assess symptom severity.5


An important note: This toolkit does not include a comprehensive set of all available screeners. Screeners and questionnaires are not for diagnostic use, nor are they a replacement for your professional medical advice and judgment. For measures that are self-reported by the patient, clinicians should verify responses as part of the clinical interview.

References
  1. Jin H, Wu S. Use of patient-reported data to match depression screening intervals with depression risk profiles in primary care patients with diabetes: development and validation of prediction models for major depression. JMIR Form Res. 2019;3(4):e13610.
  2. Kroenke K, Spitzer RL. The PHQ-9: a new depression diagnostic and severity measure. Psychiatr Ann.2002;32:509–521.
  3. Kessler RC, Akiskal HS, Angst J, et al. Validity of the assessment of bipolar spectrum disorders in the WHO CIDI 3.0. J Affect Disord. 2006;96:259–269.
  4. Goodwin GM, Haddad PM, Ferrier IN, et al. Evidence-based guidelines for treating bipolar disorder: revised third edition recommendations from the British Association for Psychopharmacology. J Psychopharmacol. 2016;30:495–553.
  5. Spitzer RL, Kroenke K, Williams JBW, Löwe B. A brief measure for assessing generalized anxiety disorder: the GAD-7. Arch Intern Med. 2006;166:1092–1097.