Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15)
Answer the fifteen yes or no questions of the short Geriatric Depression Scale and see your total out of 15 against the published thresholds. The scale was developed for older adults, it is reproduced word for word, and it is a screen rather than a diagnosis.
Medically reviewed by Kevin Brandstetter, M.D.Updated September 28, 2026
MOOD SCALE (short form)
Choose the best answer for how you have felt over the past week:
1. Are you basically satisfied with your life?
2. Have you dropped many of your activities and interests?
3. Do you feel that your life is empty?
4. Do you often get bored?
5. Are you in good spirits most of the time?
6. Are you afraid that something bad is going to happen to you?
7. Do you feel happy most of the time?
8. Do you often feel helpless?
9. Do you prefer to stay at home, rather than going out and doing new things?
10. Do you feel you have more problems with memory than most?
11. Do you think it is wonderful to be alive now?
12. Do you feel pretty worthless the way you are now?
13. Do you feel full of energy?
14. Do you feel that your situation is hopeless?
15. Do you think that most people are better off than you are?
Your GDS-15 score
Incomplete
0 of 15 answered
Answer every question to see the score. A partly answered questionnaire has no score of its own.
A score is a screen, not a diagnosis. The next step is a conversation with a licensed clinician, who reads a number like this alongside your history, not on its own.
A screen, not a diagnosis.
The short Geriatric Depression Scale asks fifteen yes or no questions about how you have felt over the past week. It was developed for older adults. It cannot diagnose depression or anything else, and a number on its own says little about one person. Only a licensed clinician can make a diagnosis, and they read a score alongside your history, not instead of it.
If you are thinking about harming yourself, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, free and open 24 hours a day. If you are in immediate danger, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room.
Methodology
- How this is calculated
- Each question has one answer that scores 1 point and one that scores 0. For questions 1, 5, 7, 11, and 13, “NO” scores the point; for the other ten, “YES” does. The points are added for a total between 0 and 15. The patient form does not mark which answer scores, and neither do the questions on this page. No total appears until every question is answered, because a partly answered questionnaire has no score.
- Where the data comes from
- Sheikh JI, Yesavage JA: Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS): Recent evidence and development of a shorter version. Clinical Gerontology : A Guide to Assessment and Intervention 165-173, NY: The Haworth Press, 1986. The title, the instruction line, the fifteen questions, and the answers are reproduced word for word from the patient form on the scale's Stanford home page, and the scoring from its scoring form. The home page states: “The original scale is in the public domain due to it being partly the result of Federal support.”
- Last updated
- September 28, 2026
- What this does not account for
- Everything a clinician asks beyond these questions: how long you have felt this way, sleep, appetite, memory and thinking, grief or recent losses, your medical history, and your medications. The scale asks about the past week only.
What the thresholds mean
The scale's scoring form, published by its developers at Stanford, reads:
Answers in bold indicate depression. Although differing sensitivities and specificities have been obtained across studies, for clinical purposes a score > 5 points is suggestive of depression and should warrent a follow-up interview. Scores > 10 are almost always depression.
Those two numbers split the total into three ranges. The badge beside a score on this page names the range and nothing else, because a range of a score is not a statement about the person who scored it.
- 0 to 5: 5 or below
- 6 to 10: Above 5
- 11 to 15: Above 10
Who the scale is for
Its developers describe it as “developed as a basic screening measure for depression in older adults”. They publish no age cutoff, so this page asks for no age.
Why the wording is not edited
The Geriatric Depression Scale is a validated questionnaire: its thresholds mean what they mean because large numbers of people answered these questions in this wording. Shorten a question or soften a phrase and the score is no longer the score the research is about. So the questions and the answers here are reproduced exactly as the form prints them, including its capitals, rather than rewritten in Temi's voice the way the rest of this page is.
Nothing here is stored
Your answers stay in your browser. They are not sent to Temi, not saved, not attached to you, and not recorded in any session replay, and closing the tab clears them. Temi knows only that someone opened this tool, the same thing it knows about every page.
Copying the result link is the one way answers leave your browser, and you decide when. The link carries the fifteen answers in the part of the address after the “#”, which browsers never send to a web server, so Temi still never sees a score. Anyone holding the link can open it and read the answers, so send it only to someone you mean to show.
If you want to act on what you see, the useful next step is a conversation with a clinician who knows you, or one you can get to. Temi does not prescribe controlled substances.
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Already taking a medication for your mood?
Temi's physicians review renewals for non-controlled medications, usually within 48 hours. A score on this page is not a prescription and does not decide anything.
A licensed physician reviews every request. Nothing on this page is a prescription.