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The QIDS-SR-16 is a 16-item self-report depression severity scale designed to map directly onto DSM-IV-TR criteria for major depressive disorder. Where the PHQ-9 collapses each DSM domain into a single item, QIDS gives sleep, appetite/weight, and psychomotor symptoms multiple items each — so the practitioner has tighter coverage of which symptoms are driving severity.

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What it measures

Depression severity over the last 7 days, broken across nine DSM-IV-TR symptom domains:
  • Sleep — four items (initial, middle, late insomnia, hypersomnia)
  • Sad mood — one item
  • Appetite / weight — four items (decreased appetite, increased appetite, weight loss, weight gain)
  • Concentration — one item
  • Self-view — one item
  • Suicidality — one item
  • Interest — one item
  • Energy — one item
  • Psychomotor — two items (slowing, agitation)

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When to use it

  • Outcome tracking in research-informed practice. QIDS is widely used in NIMH-funded studies (STAR*D, CO-MED) and many outcome-tracking practices prefer it for that lineage.
  • When PHQ-9’s single-item-per-domain isn’t enough detail. If you want to see which insomnia pattern is in play (initial vs middle vs late), or whether appetite is increased or decreased, QIDS shows you that explicitly.
  • Intake, regular monitoring, discharge. Same cadence as PHQ-9 — baseline, every 2–4 weeks, pre/post intervention, end of treatment.

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How clients fill it

About three to five minutes, depending on how the client thinks about their week. The instrument asks them to pick the one statement in each group that best describes them over the past 7 days.

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How Rivet scores it

The canonical QIDS-SR-16 total is not a simple sum of all 16 items. It is the sum of the highest item rating within each of the nine DSM symptom domains:
  • Sleep: max of items 1–4
  • Sad mood: item 5
  • Appetite/weight: max of items 6–9
  • Concentration: item 10
  • Self-view: item 11
  • Suicidality: item 12
  • Interest: item 13
  • Energy: item 14
  • Psychomotor: max of items 15–16
The canonical total range is 0–27 with severity bands:
TotalSeverity
0–5None
6–10Mild
11–15Moderate
16–20Severe
21–27Very severe
Rivet’s in-session scoring pill shows a raw all-item sum as a proxy, not the canonical domain-max total. The published source of truth for the canonical QIDS-SR total is the IDS-QIDS.org scoring sheet — consult it when you need the canonical number to put in the chart.Item 12 (suicidality) is still flagged separately regardless of which total you’re reading.
The raw-sum proxy is useful as a live “is this moving” signal during the fill, but the number you put in the chart should be the canonical domain-max sum.

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Item 12 — suicidality

Any answer above “I do not think of suicide or death” on Item 12 warrants clinical follow-up regardless of the total score. Rivet surfaces a flag in the scoring pill when Item 12 crosses the cutoff.This rule is the same shape as PHQ-9’s Item 9 rule — the item matters on its own, not just as part of the total.

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When NOT to use it

  • Clients under 18. The QIDS family was validated in adults; the age-appropriate version for adolescents is QIDS-A17.
  • When the practitioner needs the canonical number live during the session. Until the domain-max calculation is computed by Rivet’s engine, the in-session pill shows a raw-sum proxy only. If you need the canonical number in real time, the PHQ-9 is the simpler fit.
  • As a sole diagnostic instrument. Screening, not diagnosis.

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Citation

Rush, A. J., Trivedi, M. H., Ibrahim, H. M., Carmody, T. J., Arnow, B., Klein, D. N., Markowitz, J. C., Ninan, P. T., Kornstein, S., Manber, R., Thase, M. E., Kocsis, J. H., & Keller, M. B. (2003). “The 16-item Quick Inventory of Depressive Symptomatology (QIDS), clinician rating (QIDS-C), and self-report (QIDS-SR): a psychometric evaluation in patients with chronic major depression.” Biological Psychiatry, 54(5): 573–583. Public-domain instrument distributed at IDS-QIDS.org with explicit free clinical and research use. Rivet preserves canonical item wording verbatim.

PHQ-9

The simpler depression measure if the QIDS detail isn’t what you need.

CES-D-R

The other DSM-symptom-group-aligned depression scale in the library.

Screening overview

Picking between overlapping depression measures.