There are things I liked about this article and things I didn't like. If I had the ability I would probably give this about a 3.5 out of 5. I do like the fact that this is a test you can take online with multiple answers not just a yes/no. It asks simple questions and is scored for you. Here is where the negatives started for me. My particular answer was "Your answers reflect the presence of significant depressive symptoms. It is advised to seek a psychiatric consultation". After that is a link for referral information but the referrals are for people in New York City. Now I realize this is through NYU but like in my case not only people from NY are going to go to this site and take this test. There really should be referral information for people taking the test outside of NY. My results were a pretty bold statement without really going into where they are seeing these "signficant symptoms". When I do things like this I always like the section at the end that states why you got the result you got.. that is not provided here at all. However, it does provide a link to get information on Depression if you want more information. If I got more information regarding why I was graded this way and some local referral information I probably would have given this a 4.5. It is a good tool just needs some work on the results page.

This is a useful tool. Thanks for finding it. I also wished there was an expanded referral section or a link for people not in the New York area.

This is a pretty standard depression screening test, but it does cover most of the major symptoms of depression and might be helpful to people wondering if they are truly clincally depressed or just having a rough spot.

I have spent time on this website before seeing it here at WEGO Health, and was previously impressed by it. I used it as a link on my Mental & Emotional Health blog, and so I absolutely recommend it to others. Something in particular that I liked about this website was the very clear disclaimer at the bottom of the test - where, if you take the test, you WILL see it; "ODST is a preliminary screening test for depressive symptoms that does not replace in any way a formal psychiatric evaluation."