About this screening · Physical Symptoms · PHQ-15
I keep having physical problems doctors can’t help with, and it’s making life harder
Headaches, stomach trouble, chest pain, dizziness, tiredness — physical symptoms that tests cannot fully explain are common, real, and closely tied to stress. When they keep coming back and start to run your life, the mind and the body usually need looking at together.
This screening uses the PHQ-15, which asks how much fifteen common physical symptoms have bothered you over the past four weeks. It takes about three minutes.
Start the screeningAnonymous. No name, no sign-up. A few minutes.
About the PHQ-15
The PHQ-15 measures the severity of physical symptoms over the past four weeks across 15 common complaints — pain, gastrointestinal, cardiopulmonary and fatigue symptoms among them.
Physical symptoms with no clear medical explanation are common and treatable, and this instrument is a way of noticing how much they are affecting you.
How it is scored
- Each symptom is scored 0, 1 or 2: not bothered 0, bothered a little 1, bothered a lot 2. The total range is 0–30.
- A positive screen is a total of 10 or above, or at least three of the thirteen symptom items answered "bothered a lot" — so the theme is judged per item as well as in total, and carries no severity band.
Source. Informed by the Patient Health Questionnaire-15 (PHQ-15).
What the result means
A screening result is not a diagnosis. It tells you whether your answers resemble a pattern that is worth discussing with a professional.
Two people with the same score can be in very different situations, and only a qualified clinician can assess yours.
Where to get help
The Health and Counseling Center at Hamad Bin Khalifa University offers confidential counseling to the HBKU community. You do not need a screening result to get in touch.