Do I have SAD?

Symptom Scoring Table

Please consult your doctor if you believe you may be suffering from a depressive illness.

This questionnaire is designed to help you assess whether you have SAD; it can also be used to help you assess how much bright light therapy is helping. It is based on the standard assessment tool used by doctors. You might like to talk it over with your doctor or another person in your household.

Not everyone will have every symptom, but the score should go down over the weeks. Typical figures are over 20 when you have SAD and under 10 when you are better.

SAD Questionnaire

Print out this form and fill in the numbers in the boxes. Compared to when you're well, how have you felt during the past week?

0 = no different
1 = a little bit
2 = somewhat
3 = quite a lot
4 = definitely, badly

Copyrights acknowledged.

STANDARD depression symptoms score
I have been..	before starting lights	after 1 week	after 2 weeks	after 3 weeks
..down and depressed	.	.	.	.
..less interested in doing things or delaying doing things	.	.	.	.
..less interested in sex	.	.	.	.
..less interested in eating	.	.	.	.
..losing weight	.	.	.	.
..finding it hard to get to sleep	.	.	.	.
..waking up in the night or my sleep is restless	.	.	.	.
..waking up too early	.	.	.	.
..more tired than usual, heavy in my limbs, aching back or muscles or headaches	.	.	.	.
..guilty, I feel like a failure	.	.	.	.
..feeling that life is nor worth living	.	.	.	.
..tense, irritable, worrying too much about little things	.	.	.	.
..sure I'm ill or have a disease, unreasonably worried about my physical health	.	.	.	.
My thoughts or speech are slow	.	.	.	.
..fidgety, restless, cannot keep still	.	.	.	.
Morning is worse than evening	.	.	.	.
Evening is worse than morning	.	.	.	.
..feeling unreal, as if I am in a dream or cut off from what's going on around me	.	.	.	.
..paranoid, suspicious	.	.	.	.
..preoccupied, I have to keep checking things	.	.	.	.
I have physical symptoms such as stomach problems, sweating, cramp, having to urinate frequently, dry mouth, sighing, heart palpitations, hyperventilating	.	.	.	.
TOTAL standard depression score	.	.	.	.
.
SUPPLEMENTAL depression symptoms score
I have been..	before starting lights	after 1 week	after 2 weeks	after 3 weeks
..avoiding people, don't want to socialise	.	.	.	.
..gaining weight	.	.	.	.
I WANT to eat more than usual	.	.	.	.
I ACTUALLY HAVE eaten more than usual	.	.	.	.
..craving sweets or starchy foods	.	.	.	.
..sleeping too much or I have been more tired than I should be	.	.	.	.
..my mood or energy slumps in the afternoon then picks up at least an hour before bedtime	.	.	.	.
*TOTAL supplemental* depression score**	.	.	.	.
.
COMBINED TOTAL depression score	.	.	.	.

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Comments on this article

kat
joined 22 Jan 2008
1 posts

Posted by kat, 21:58 22 January 2008

What numbers do we use in the boxes, is it on a scale or 1 or 2 numbers. I want to do the questionnaire, but can't help think that some important detail is missing...

lornylu
joined 24 Feb 2008
3 posts