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A scored measure is a clinical questionnaire — a PHQ-9, a GAD-7, a DASH — whose answers add up to a score. The score lands on the Measures tab of the patient’s chart, where each measure has its own chart over time.

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Make a form a scored measure

1

Choose the measure

On the form’s Settings tab, under Clinical measure, choose it in What this form measures. Each measure in the list says what it is scored out of.
2

Give each question its scale

Mark a choice question with Points per option, so each answer carries the number the questionnaire gives it. A number, scale or rating question scores the number the patient enters. Questions that are not part of the questionnaire — a name, a date — are left out of the score.
3

Send it to a patient

When the patient’s response arrives, the score is added to their chart. A questionnaire a patient signs from their documents is scored the same way.

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How each measure is scored

Seven measures are scored the way their authors publish them: The DASS-21 bands, each on its 0 to 42 score: The other ten — PHQ-9, GAD-7, PCL-5, AUDIT, PHQ-15, WSAS, DAST-10, EAT-26, EAT-10 and ACE — are scored as they always have been.
A band or a positive screen describes a score. It is not a diagnosis.

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When a response is recorded but not scored

A response is kept, but given no number, when it cannot be scored the way the questionnaire is published:
  • The form has a different number of scored questions — a CUDOS with 16 questions instead of 18, for example.
  • An answer is outside the questionnaire’s scale — a 0 on the SWLS, whose answers run 1 to 7, or a 35 on the DES-II, whose answers go up in tens.
  • Too many questions were left blank.
It appears under Recorded but not scored on that measure’s chart, with the reason and the date. No score is better than a wrong one.

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The CUDOS and DES-II questionnaires in your document library

The CUDOS and DES-II you send from your document library now use the questions as their authors publish them:
  • CUDOS has all 18 questions, each answered 0 to 4, so a completed one is scored out of 72. The version it replaces had 16 questions, several of which the CUDOS does not ask, so those responses are recorded but not scored.
  • DES-II asks its 28 questions in the published wording and order, and each is answered by choosing a percentage from 0% to 100% in steps of ten.
Both name their authors in the instructions. Documents and responses made from the earlier versions are not changed — each keeps the questions the patient actually answered.

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Scores recorded before the change

DASH, CUDOS, DES-II, PEG, DASS-21, ASRS and SWLS used to be scored differently — a PEG, for example, was the three answers added together, out of 30. Nothing already on a chart has been changed. Each score keeps the rule it was scored under. A chart of scores made under the old rule is headed Scored under the previous rule. New scores start a chart of their own, so a PEG out of 30 and a PEG out of 10 are never drawn on the same line.

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Reading the arrows

Beside each chart, Since Baseline and Since Last show how many points the score has moved since the first and the previous assessment. The arrow shows which way the number went; the colour shows whether that is good for that questionnaire:
  • For most measures a lower score is better — fewer symptoms, less disability, less risk — so a fall is green and a rise is red.
  • For SWLS a higher score is better, because it measures how satisfied someone is with their life — so a rise is green.
  • ACE counts difficult experiences in childhood, so a change is a correction to the history rather than an improvement or a decline. Its arrow has no colour.
  • No change shows a flat line and No change.

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Troubleshooting

The CUDOS has 18 questions. A version with a different number — including the earlier 16-question CUDOS in the document library — is recorded without a score, and the reason says how many it had. Send the current CUDOS from your document library, or build the form with all 18 questions, each marked 0 to 4.
One holds scores made under the previous rule and is headed so. The two are kept apart because their numbers are on different scales.
DASS-21 gives three scores — Depression, Anxiety and Stress — so its card shows three charts, each out of 42.
Every SWLS answer runs from 1 to 7, and all five must be answered. A form that allowed a 0, or a response with a question left blank, is recorded without a score.