A new study suggests that the standard practice of screening chronic pain patients for depression has minimal benefit over and above using a single question about mood status over the past two weeks.
All participants had presented with chronic pain and they completed a single-item mood question. Patients who were also screened for depression with the nine-item Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) on average had worse mood at a six-month follow-up than those who also completed a questionnaire