Instrument reference
Kessler Psychological Distress Scales (K10 / K6)
Copyrighted · use with attribution Licence statement checked
- Construct measured
- Non-specific psychological distress (anxiety and depressive symptoms) over a recent period.
- Category
- Psychological distress
- Intended population
- Adults in general-population surveys and clinical settings.
- Number of items
- K10: 10 items; K6: 6 items (as the names indicate).
- Administration format
- Self-report or interviewer-administered.
- Scoring approach
- Summed ratings; see developer materials for scoring and the cited articles for thresholds. This catalogue does not reproduce items or scoring tables.
- Language and population validation
- Developer page lists translations, noting they are not official WHO World Mental Health translations; a WHO translation protocol is available on request.
Reliability and validity evidence
- Developed with item-response methods to discriminate serious mental illness in population surveys. — Kessler et al. (2002)
- Screening performance for serious mental illness was examined in a general-population sample. — Kessler et al. (2003)
Interpretation cautions
- Measures distress, not a specific disorder.
- Thresholds used in national surveys may not transfer to clinical or Indian samples.
Copyright and licence
Copyrighted · use with attribution
Developer page: copyright Ronald C. Kessler; materials are posted for unrestricted use with the requirement to acknowledge the copyright and cite Kessler et al. (2003).
The developer permits use but requires copyright acknowledgement and a specific citation.
Official source
Harvard NCS — K10 and K6 (opens in a new tab)
Rights and evidence last verified: 2026-10-19.