Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (QIDS)
Evaluates the severity of depression symptoms based on domains such as sleep, mood or suicidal ideation.
Refer to the text below the calculator for more information about the self-report and clinician-rated versions of the QIDS.
The 16-item QIDS is a measure of depressive symptom severity derived in 2003 from the 30-item Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (IDS), originally developed in 1986.
The tool is available as both self-report QIDS-SR(16) and clinician-rated QIDS-C(16) and can be easily used as a brief rating of depressive symptom severity in both clinical and research settings.
| QIDS Scoring | Interpretation |
| 0 - 5 | No depression |
| 6 - 10 | Mild depression |
| 11 - 15 | Moderate depression |
| 16 - 20 | Severe depression |
| 21 - 27 | Very severe depression |
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Steps on how to print your input & results:
1. Fill in the calculator/tool with your values and/or your answer choices and press Calculate.
2. Then you can click on the Print button to open a PDF in a separate window with the inputs and results. You can further save the PDF or print it.
Please note that once you have closed the PDF you need to click on the Calculate button before you try opening it again, otherwise the input and/or results may not appear in the pdf.
Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology
The 16-item QIDS is a measure of depressive symptom severity derived in 2003 from the 30-item Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (IDS), originally developed in 1986. The tool is available as both self-report QIDS-SR(16) and clinician-rated QIDS-C(16) and can be easily used as a brief rating of depressive symptom severity in both clinical and research settings.
The 16 items ensure that the severity of the nine diagnostic symptom criteria used in DSM is evaluated. However, please note that other depression associated symptoms (such as anxious and/or melancholic behaviour, pain or gastrointestinal disturbances) are not included.
The usual time frame for assessing depressive symptom severity is the week prior to the assessment.
| QIDS section | QIDS items |
| Sleep | 1. Sleep onset insomnia 2. Mid-nocturnal insomnia 3. Early morning insomnia 4. Hypersomnia |
| Mood | 5. Mood (sad) |
| Weight | 6. Appetite (decreased) 7. Appetite (increased) 8. Weight (decrease) within the last two weeks 9. Weight (increase) within the last two weeks |
| Concentration | 10. Concentration/decision making |
| Guilt | 11. Outlook (self) |
| Suicidal Ideation | 12. Suicidal ideation |
| Interest | 13. Involvement |
| Fatigue | 14. Energy/fatigability |
| Psychomotor Changes | 15. Psychomotor slowing 16. Psychomotor agitation |
Both the IDS-30 and QIDS-16 assess all the criterion symptom domains designated by the American Psychiatry Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - 4th edition (DSM-IV) (APA 1994).
Scoring the QIDS
Each of the 16 items has 4 answer choices, scored from 0 to 3 (the higher the score, the greater the severity of the symptom). The total QIDS score is made up from the sum of:
- The highest score from questions 1 – 4;
- The score from question 5;
- The highest score from questions 6 – 9;
- The sum of scores from questions 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14;
- The highest score from questions 15 and 16.
The final total score is interpreted as follows:
| QIDS score | Depression severity |
| 0 - 5 | No depression |
| 6 - 10 | Mild depression |
| 11 - 15 | Moderate depression |
| 16 - 20 | Severe depression |
| 21 - 27 | Very severe depression |
About the Original Study
The 2003 study that led to the development of the self-report QIDS-SR(16) and clinician-rated QIDS-C(16) set out to evaluate and compare the psychometric properties of the QIDS-SR(16) in relation to the IDS-SR(30) and the 24-item Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HAM-D(24)).
The study cohort consisted in 596 adult outpatients treated for chronic nonpsychotic, major depressive disorder.
Internal consistency values were as follows: Cronbach's alpha =.86 for the QIDS-SR(16), Cronbach's alpha =.92 for the IDS-SR(30) and Cronbach's alpha =.88 for the HAM-D(24). The QIDS was found to be as sensitive to symptom change as the other two measures, indicating high concurrent validity for all three scales.
References
Original reference
Rush AJ, Trivedi MH, Ibrahim HM, et al. The 16-Item Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (QIDS), clinician rating (QIDS-C), and self-report (QIDS-SR): a psychometric evaluation in patients with chronic major depression [published correction appears in Biol Psychiatry. 2003 Sep 1;54(5):585]. Biol Psychiatry. 2003; 54(5):573-583.
Other references
Rush AJ, Giles DE, Schlesser MA, Fulton CL, Weissenburger J, Burns C. The Inventory for Depressive Symptomatology (IDS): preliminary findings. Psychiatry Res. 1986; 18(1):65-87.
Reilly TJ, MacGillivray SA, Reid IC, Cameron IM. Psychometric properties of the 16-item Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology: a systematic review and meta-analysis. J Psychiatr Res. 2015; 60:132-40.
Brown ES, Murray M, Carmody TJ, Kennard BD, Hughes CW, Khan DA, Rush AJ. The Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology-Self-report: a psychometric evaluation in patients with asthma and major depressive disorder. Ann Allergy Asthma Immunol. 2008; 100(5):433-8.
Specialty: Psychiatry
Objective: Assessment
Year Of Study: 2003
Abbreviation: QIDS
Article By: Denise Nedea
Published On: November 14, 2020 · 12:00 AM
Last Checked: November 14, 2020
Next Review: November 14, 2025