PHQ Alcohol

Validated

Patient Health Questionnaire – Alcohol Module (PHQ)

18+ yearsSelf~1 min6 questions

Answer each question "Yes" or "No".

Report details · optional

Patient initials / IDCompleted byDate

Shown on the report and stored with the screening record. Use initials or a code, not full names.

Answers, results and report details are recorded by OpenScreener to monitor and improve the service. Privacy

About this screener — evidence, source

Questions 9–10 of the full Patient Health Questionnaire: whether the person drinks, then five alcohol-related problems that happened more than once in the last 6 months (drinking against medical advice, while responsible for work or children, missing activities, interpersonal problems, drink-driving). Any problem meets the PHQ algorithm for provisional alcohol abuse.

Evidence · validated

Validated as part of the PHQ in 3000 US primary-care patients, 585 of whom had an independent mental-health professional interview; agreement for any PHQ diagnosis was kappa 0.65, sensitivity 75% and specificity 90% (Spitzer et al., 1999). The algorithm follows DSM-IV alcohol abuse; module-specific accuracy is not reported in the abstract.

Source & licence

Spitzer RL, Kroenke K, Williams JBW, and the Patient Health Questionnaire Primary Care Study Group. Validation and utility of a self-report version of PRIME-MD: the PHQ primary care study. JAMA. 1999;282(18):1737–1744. Developed by Drs Robert L. Spitzer, Janet B.W. Williams, Kurt Kroenke and colleagues, with an educational grant from Pfizer Inc.

Licence: Public domain — the PHQ form states "No permission required to reproduce, translate, display or distribute", and the PHQ Instruction Manual states all PHQ measures are in the public domain.

Questions 9 and 10a–e of the official English full PHQ (page 3; copy hosted by the Government of the Northwest Territories, https://www.hss.gov.nt.ca/professionals/en/patient-health-questionnaire-phq). Scoring from the form's office-coding footer ("Alc Abu if any of #10a-e is 'YES'") and Table 2 of the PHQ Instruction Manual.

Official source ↗