Mental Wellbeing Screening
A PHQ-9 and GAD-7-style self-assessment for pre-session triage and progress tracking in Swiss psychotherapy practices. Rating questions for depression and anxiety symptoms, strictly confidential under Art. 321 StGB.
Routine outcome monitoring works for an unglamorous reason: it catches deterioration earlier than clinical impression does. A therapist who sees a client weekly is poorly placed to notice a slow decline, because each session looks much like the last one. A short structured self-report, taken consistently, turns that gradient into something visible.
A screening instrument, not a diagnostic one
This form supports clinical work inside an established therapeutic relationship. It does not replace a clinical diagnosis and must be interpreted by a qualified mental health professional. Where a client indicates thoughts of self-harm, immediate clinical follow-up is required. Data is confidential under Art. 321 StGB and the nFADP.
What the screening asks
- Client identifier and session date
- Mood and energy level self-ratings over the past two weeks
- Frequency of low mood, loss of interest and hopelessness indicators
- Anxiety, worry and physiological tension ratings
- Sleep quality and concentration self-assessment
- Functional impact on work and daily activities
- Safety screening for thoughts of self-harm
- Open comments for anything the client wishes to share
The safety item is not like the others
Every other item on this form is a data point to be read in context, over time, alongside the rest. The self-harm item is not. It carries a duty of care that attaches the moment the answer is submitted, which has a practical consequence for how the form is used: it cannot sit unread in an inbox until the session. If you send screenings ahead of appointments, someone has to be reviewing them on the day they arrive, and your practice's risk protocol — escalation pathway, documentation, who is responsible when the therapist is away — needs to exist before the first form goes out rather than after the first disclosure.
Read the pattern, not the number
| What the scores do | What it usually warrants |
|---|---|
| Gradual decline across three or more sessions | A conversation about whether the current approach is working — the signal ROM exists to catch |
| Sharp single-session drop | Asking what happened that week before reading it as deterioration |
| Flat scores with clinical improvement | Checking whether the client is answering to please, a known limitation of self-report |
| Improvement that plateaus | A goals conversation rather than a treatment change |
| Any safety item endorsed | Immediate follow-up under your risk protocol, independent of every other score |
What this is modelled on
The structure draws on the PHQ-9 and GAD-7. The PHQ-9 is a nine-item self-report questionnaire validated across many populations and translated into more than 80 languages, including German, French and Italian; it rates the frequency of nine depressive symptoms over the past two weeks on a 0–3 scale. The GAD-7 follows the same format for seven anxiety symptoms. Both are in the public domain and are widely used in Swiss primary care and specialist settings, which is also why the two-week reference window is worth keeping unless your protocol says otherwise — it is what the norms were built on.
Mental health data under the nFADP
Mental health data is among the most sensitive personal data there is. The nFADP classifies health data as besonders schützenswerte Personendaten, requiring purpose limitation, access control and a retention policy. A screening series compounds this: a single score is a snapshot, but a year of fortnightly scores is a detailed longitudinal record of someone's psychological state. End-to-end encryption is the control that fits that shape — each submission is encrypted in the client's browser, and your practice holds the only Vault key, so the series is not readable by the platform storing it.
Using it in session
Use this template
Copy it into your dashboard — the mood, anxiety, function and safety items are already structured.
Keep or adjust the reference window
The default is 'the past two weeks', matching PHQ-9 and GAD-7 convention. Change it only if your protocol uses a different window, and then keep it fixed.
Send it on the same schedule every time
Consistency is what makes a trend readable. Before each session, or every second session, is the usual pattern — an irregular series mostly measures when you happened to ask.
Review before the session, not during it
Read the scores beforehand, document significant changes in the clinical record, and bring the chart into the conversation rather than the raw numbers.
Questions therapists ask
Can this be used as a standalone diagnostic tool?
No. It screens and monitors. A clinical diagnosis needs a comprehensive assessment by a qualified professional, and a high score on the depression or anxiety items should prompt clinical follow-up rather than a conclusion.
How often should clients complete it?
Most ROM protocols use before every session or every second session; some practices run a monthly check-in. Any of those work. What does not work is varying it, because the trend then reflects the sampling as much as the client.
What if a client does not want to complete it?
Participation is voluntary and declining is itself clinically informative. Note it, and continue assessment by other means — a client pressured into a wellbeing questionnaire produces compliant answers, which are worse than no answers.
See our use case for therapy and mental health practices, the therapy consent and policies template that sets the frame for this work, and our guide to form analytics without tracking.