Symptoms linked to distress
The pre- and post-study questionnaires contained the combined PHQ-9 patient health questionnaire and GAD-7 general anxiety disorder questionnaire, jointly used to measure distress, using symptoms linked to depression and anxiety. [7, 8]
Table 2 shows the results. For all symptoms evaluated, there was an improvement in the average rating at the end of the study in comparison with ratings at the start. In 9 cases the change is statistically significant.
Table 2: Over the past two weeks, how much of the time have you been bothered by any of the following?