Reliability and equivalence of the 8-item version of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8) to screen for depressive symptoms in adults with chronic pain: A representative U.S. population study.

ABSTRACT:

Background

The 8-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8) is the most widely implemented clinical depression screener in the world and is increasingly influential in population surveillance of unmet mental health needs. However, in the context of chronic pain (CP), depression screening could be complicated by overlapping symptoms. Inaccurate attribution of CP symptoms to depression could lead to overestimation of depressive symptom severity or even artifactual inflation of depression prevalence estimates. Results of small, non-representative studies are heterogenous; suitability of the PHQ-8 to screen for depression in those with CP remains unclear. We aimed to determine the reliability and equivalence of PHQ-8 in adults with and without CP.

Methods

This cross-sectional obs

SUBMITTER: De La Rosa JS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12407634 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature