Distress Thermometer
What It Measures
The Distress Thermometer is a single question. A person circles a number from 0 to 10 to show how much distress they have felt in the past week, including today — the same visual format used for pain, applied to emotional strain. It takes a couple of minutes.
What makes it useful is the Problem List printed alongside it. The person checks off which specific concerns have been a problem, grouped as practical (child care, housing, insurance, transportation, work), family, emotional, spiritual or religious, and physical. The number tells a team that something is wrong; the checklist tells them what kind of help to arrange. A score of 4 or higher is the commonly used threshold for further evaluation.
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: Downloading requires agreeing that you are a healthcare professional, researcher, hospital, or medical practice using it strictly for non-promotional, educational use with patients, in grants, or for research. Incorporating it into an EHR is approved for individual hospital use only. If adapting the tool, all NCCN logos, trademarks, and names must be removed first.
Learn More: The Problem List may be modified to fit a local population — NCCN says so explicitly in the guideline.
