Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS)

The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale screens for anxiety and low mood in people who are physically unwell. Its design solves a specific problem: general depression questionnaires ask about fatigue, poor sleep, and appetite changes, which a person with a serious illness will report regardless of their mood, inflating the score.

The HADS leaves those out entirely. Fourteen items ask about the past week, seven for anxiety and seven for depression, each scored 0 to 3 for subscale totals from 0 to 21. The depression items lean toward anhedonia — whether the person still enjoys things, still laughs, still looks forward to anything. The two subscales are read separately rather than combined.

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Licensing Notes: A $168 license and fee apply

Learn More: Two cut-off conventions circulate. 8 or above on either subscale is the threshold most often used for screening, giving sensitivity around 0.90 for anxiety and 0.83 for depression. 11 or above is treated as a definitive case.