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October 3, 2025

When “Bothered by” Means “Often”: Evidence for Misinterpretation of the Patient Health Questionnaire

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Authors

MPMargarita PanayiotouJRJosip RazumGEGudrun Eisele

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Overview

Observational analysis reveals widespread misinterpretation of PHQ instructions in community and clinical samples, indicating potential validity issues.

Key Points

  • Only 54.7% of participants correctly interpreted the PHQ instructions regarding symptom bothersomeness.
  • Only 21.3% of participants reported using the instructed interpretation when responding to the PHQ items.
  • The study utilized samples from MTurk and clinical groups to assess PHQ response validity across populations.
  • Findings suggest misinterpretation of the PHQ tools could compromise their validity in both research and clinical settings.

Cite This Study

Panayiotou et al. (2025) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/68e02f46f0e39f13e7fa2eb2https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/jcsq8_v2
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Also Consider

Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context:

  1. 1When “Bothered by” Means “Often”: Evidence for Misinterpretation of the Patient Health Questionnaire2025
  2. 2Experienced, bothered by, or both: People differ in how they understand the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ) items2025
  3. 3An intensive longitudinal study on interpretation issues with the PHQ instructions2026
  4. 4Why are we still using the PHQ-9? A Historical Review and Psychometric Evaluation of Measurement Invariance2025 · 15 citations
  5. 5Reliability and cross-group equivalence of the 8-item version of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8) to screen for depression in adults with and without chronic pain: a nationally representative U.S. population study2025