Informal Assessment Tools for Severe Depression from Catalina
Severe depression and anxiety can be a crippling experience, and inpatient treatment is often a crucial element of getting effective support. For a final determination of the right level of care, mental illness should always be evaluated by a professional clinician. But you can use resources from Catalina to help you understand whether further evaluation and potentially residential treatment are called for.
Fortunately, there are some great tools available to help you decide if this is right for you. We will walk you through it with our Do I Need Inpatient Rehab for Depression quiz.
Catalina Behavioral Health wants to connect you with a mental health program that can help you start to feel your best. Our residential depression treatment program is filled with evidence-based therapies that can help save you from worsening depression.
Take this quiz and see if you need more help with your mental health, and feel free to reach out to our Admissions team at any time for a more formal assessment.
Get Treatment Options for Depression at Catalina Now
Evaluating Mental Illness for an Inpatient Treatment Program
Do you need to seek depression treatment as an inpatient or would a lower level of care be sufficient for you? Both an inpatient treatment program and an outpatient treatment program can prove beneficial for your mood. Family members may be able to help you identify what level of treatment is right for you, but trying out a quiz can be insightful.
There are lots of different types of quizzes out there that can help you determine what level of depression treatment is right for you.
Perhaps the most famous is the Patient Health Questionnaire or the PHQ-9. This allows you to mark off the symptoms that are laid out in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for major depressive disorder. It gives you better insight into how prevalent your depression may be.
The PHQ-9 for Assessing Depression Treatment
For each of the following items, you should mark off how often you experienced these feelings over the past two weeks. Your options for each question are:
- Not at all: 0 points
- Several days: 1 point
- More than half the days: 2 points
- Nearly every day: 3 points
Here are the questions you will want to use to assess what level of depression treatment you should consider, whether you have a form of functioning depression or a major depressive disorder, this will help to assess the next steps to take.
Keep a Written Record of Scoring Our Depression Quiz
Write down your answers so you can refer back to them in the next section on scoring your quiz results.
- Do you feel very little interest in doing things, even if you used to love them?
- Do you feel a depressed mood or perhaps feel hopeless?
- Do you have trouble falling asleep, or staying asleep, or find that you are sleeping too much?
- Do you feel a constant sense of lethargy and fatigue?
- Are you eating too much or have a poor appetite?
- Do you feel like you are a failure or that you are letting people down constantly?
- Do you have trouble concentrating if you try to read or watch television?
- Are you moving slower than usual, to the point that other people have noticed? Are you moving too much, presenting as restless?
- Do you think of dying or hurting yourself?
Scoring the PHQ-9
Once you have taken the quiz to determine if inpatient treatment is right for you, it is time to add up your score results. Each of the answers comes with a point value you can use to assess whether you need inpatient or outpatient treatment, or a lesser level of support from an individual mental health professional.
Go back to your responses from the last section and tally up how many overall points you have. A higher number indicates more severe depression and mental health concerns occur, but where should you consider entering inpatient treatment to assist you with your mental health?
Scores that range from 15 to 27 indicate that you have moderately severe to severe depression and need help to start feeling better. If you score in this range, an inpatient treatment program is likely to offer you the most intensive help to feel better faster.
If you find that you scored the last question with a three, you should consider inpatient treatment no matter how you score overall. Thinking about death or hurting yourself should always be taken seriously and warrants a higher level of care. If you are considering taking your own life, please reach out immediately to 911 or the 988 crisis line.
Other Depression Quizzes and Assessment Areas
Of course, the PHQ-9 is not the only assessment tool out there that can pinpoint your depressive symptoms and help you figure out if you should seek an inpatient treatment program.
Here are a few more questions you may want to consider:
Rest and Sleep Conditions
How long does it take you to fall asleep each night?
- Less than 30 minutes
- More than 30 minutes
- More than an hour
Are you able to stay asleep in bed throughout the whole night or is it restless sleep?
- Sleeping through the night
- Waking up once or twice but fall back asleep
- Waking up for more than 30 minutes each night
Do you wake up before your alarm clock goes off each morning?
- 30 minutes before your alarm clock
- More than an hour before the alarm clock, but you go back to sleep
- More than an hour and do not go back to sleep
How much sleep are you getting each day?
- 7-8 hours each night
- 12 hours each day (may include naps)
- More than 12 hours each day (including naps)
Mood and Diet
How often do you have feelings of sadness or depression?
- Less than half the time
- More than half the time
- Pretty much all the time
Are you eating less than or more than normal?
- Eat a little bit less or more than usual
- Eat much less than usual or feel the need to eat more frequently
- Eat only with effort or consistently overeat
Have you lost or gained weight in the last two weeks?
- No weight loss or gain
- Gained or lost two to five pounds
- Gained or lost more than five pounds
Can you focus and make decisions when necessary?
- Some indecision and inability to focus on the task at hand
- Mostly indecisive and unable to focus
- Completely unable to make even small decisions
Do you view yourself as a person, or as a failure, or have a negative self-image?
- You view yourself as worthy of love and acceptance.
- You blame yourself or feel like you do nothing but cause problems.
- You feel worthless and can only focus on what is wrong with you.
Pleasure and Energy Levels
Do you have suicidal thoughts?
- You have fleeting thoughts of suicide.
- You think about suicide several times a week.
- You have made a specific suicide plan or attempted suicide.
Again, if you have suicidal thoughts or plans, please reach out to the 988 helpline or emergency services for immediate psychiatric support.
Are you still interested in things that once held pleasure for you?
- You have lost engagement in activities you used to enjoy.
- You only find joy in one or two of your former hobbies.
- You find no joy in anything that you used to enjoy.
Do you feel fatigued or as if you have little energy?
- You are slightly more fatigued than usual, but your responsibilities are taken care of.
- It takes you a lot of work, but you can accomplish what you need to get done.
- You cannot engage with daily responsibilities because you are too tired.
Are your thought processes and motions slowed down?
- Your thought process is a little slower than usual.
- It takes you some time to respond to others or to think through your responses.
- It is nearly impossible to respond to others or think clearly.
Do you feel restless, as if you can’t sit still?
- You feel fidgety but can sit still with great effort.
- You move around a lot and feel very restless.
- You find it difficult to sit still at all and need to move around or pace constantly.
Scoring this Depression Quiz to Assess for Inpatient Treatment
Once you complete this quiz, tally up how many times you checked the third box on each of the fourteen questions. If you answered with the middle or bottom answer on more than ten of the questions, it might be a sign that you need inpatient treatment for treating your depression.
The first answer could be indicative that outpatient treatment is sufficient for you to start to get your depression under control. In some instances, you may find that none of these questions pertain to you, from your eating habits to your compulsive behaviors to insomnia. This might be a sign that you do not have depression or are very high-functioning.
Other informal assessments offered by Catalina that may be of use:
- Complex Trauma Assessment Tool
- Eating Disorder Quiz and Self-Testing
- Psychosis Testing and Assessment Resource
Learning Self-Care and a Supportive Environment for Recovery
If you find that you have diminished ability even to complete this assessment, it might be time to consider seeking more help than you are currently getting.
Make sure you are taking care of yourself, and that starts with getting help. Whether you want to enroll in therapy sessions or see a psychiatrist for antidepressant medication, you will need to consider what level of care you could benefit from. We can always help you decide what is best with a unique treatment plan based on your specific needs.
If drug or alcohol abuse is a part of your depressive condition, our dual diagnosis program can help combat daily stressors and give you the coping skills needed to live clean and sober. The absence of drugs and drinking will help improve the foundation for your lasting recovery from depression.
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Get Help and Proven Programs for Depression at Catalina
No matter where you score on the spectrum, you should always seek treatment for signs of developing depression. Feeling sad is not the only cause for concern that should lead you to seek treatment. Especially if you have other co-occurring disorders, you may need intensive help to get back on your feet and start enjoying life again.
For clients who have depression tied to substance abuse or alcohol abuse, we offer robust treatment programs that can help you get a handle on your mental health. Catalina also provides Joint Commission-accredited programs strictly for depression treatment on both residential and outpatient levels.
Catalina Behavioral Health can assist you with evidence-based therapies as well as antidepressant medication if the need arises. Whether you need help with worsening depression or substance abuse, we have the treatment team to help you get back to living your life.
Reach out to our admissions staff via confidential call for more information on our programs today!
