Are You Depressed?

This interactive tool can help you assess your symptoms and find out if you might have depression. It calculates how many common symptoms of depression you have and — based on your answers — suggests where you might be on a scale from not depressed to depressed.

Although this tool is not for diagnosis, it may help you find out whether you should seek help from your doctor.

Many people with depression delay seeking medical advice and treatment because they believe depression is not serious or they think they can get through it, or even beat it, on their own. Sometimes people who are deeply depressed feel that nothing will help. But like other major health problems, depression cannot be overcome without treatment. In fact, untreated depression can get worse, cause other health problems, and may last for years or even a lifetime. It can have a serious impact on both you and the people you care about.

With treatment, the symptoms of even major depression may begin to improve in a few weeks.

The more symptoms of depression you have, the higher your score will be. Your score will appear as one of the following:

You are unlikely to have depression
You may have mild depression
You may have severe depression

As with all check-up tools, they simply give you a place to start. Keep in mind that a higher score does not necessarily mean that you have depression. Also, a lower score does not always mean you are depression-free. This tool can help you examine your feelings and think about whether your symptoms might be symptoms of depression. But using this tool is not a substitute for a thorough evaluation by your doctor. If you are concerned about any of your symptoms, seek medical help.