The Questionnaires in a Creyos Assessment, and Why We Use Them

A Creyos assessment can include more than puzzles and memory tasks. The platform also offers 16 standardized questionnaires, the same well-known forms many clinics use on paper, such as the PHQ-9 for depression, the GAD-7 for anxiety and the ASRS for adult ADHD. Tasks measure how you perform; questionnaires capture what you experience. Together they give a clinician a fuller picture than either alone. Here is every questionnaire Creyos lists, who each is meant for, and what it can and cannot tell you.

Performance and experience are different kinds of information

A cognitive task tells a clinician how quickly and accurately you solved problems on a given day. It cannot tell them that you slept four hours, have felt hopeless for a month, or have always lost track of conversations since childhood. A questionnaire can. Conversely, a questionnaire reflects how you see yourself (or how a parent or teacher sees you), which is valuable but subjective. Seeing both side by side helps a clinician ask better questions: is that low attention score part of a lifelong pattern, or did it arrive with depression or poor sleep?

Creyos (formerly Cambridge Brain Sciences) combines its online cognitive tasks with these questionnaires in one platform; the complete Creyos guide covers the tasks. Creyos says questionnaire results are automatically collected, scored and organized for each patient.

All 16 questionnaires Creyos lists

Age labels and question counts are Creyos's own, from its questionnaire sheet. Two quirks: Creyos's web page says "14 industry-standard questionnaires" but lists 16, and the IQCODE-SR appears only in the PDF sheet. Creyos labels the PCL-5 "7+," which looks like an error; the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for PTSD lists the PCL-5 among its adult self-report measures, so we have not repeated that label.

Mood, anxiety, stress and trauma

The PHQ-9 and GAD-7 are the workhorses of mental health screening. Each asks how often a short list of symptoms has bothered you recently, and the total score is read against published severity ranges. Our guides to the PHQ-9 depression questionnaire and the GAD-7 anxiety questionnaire explain the scoring. The PHQ-9's final question asks about thoughts of death or self-harm. If you notice those thoughts while filling it out, or at any time, call or text 988, or call 911 if you are in immediate danger; do not wait for a results visit.

The Perceived Stress Scale is a 10-question measure of how stressful life has felt. The Mood Disorder Questionnaire is a self-report screen for bipolar-spectrum disorders; in its original validation among 198 mood-clinic outpatients, a score of seven or more items had a sensitivity of 0.73 and a specificity of 0.90, which means it misses some cases and flags some people who do not have the condition. The PCL-5 lists the 20 DSM-5 symptoms of PTSD. The VA notes it can be used to screen, to monitor change during treatment and to make a provisional diagnosis, but that the gold standard for diagnosing PTSD is a structured clinical interview.

ADHD questionnaires, and how the protocol picks one

Creyos offers three ADHD rating scales, and its ADHD protocol chooses one automatically by age:

• Ages 6 to 11: the Vanderbilt (VADRS). A 55-question scale completed by a parent or teacher that covers ADHD symptoms and commonly co-occurring problems. Creyos's sheet labels it 6–12.
• Ages 12 to 17: the SWAN. An 18-question rating completed by a parent; as its full name (Strengths and Weaknesses of ADHD Symptoms and Normal Behavior) suggests, it rates behavior across a range rather than only listing problems.
• Adults 18 and older: ASRS v1.1 Part A. The six-question screener section of the World Health Organization's adult self-report scale. We do not reproduce its items, which are copyrighted; our guide to the ASRS explains how it works and links the official source.

Creyos does not include the Conners scales or the ADHD-RS-5. For how the questionnaire fits with the attention tasks, see the Creyos ADHD assessment; for younger patients, Creyos for teens and kids covers parent forms and age labels. A positive ADHD screen is a reason for a full evaluation, not a diagnosis.

Substance use and pain-medication screens

Four questionnaires deal with substances. The AUDIT, developed by the World Health Organization, is a 10-question screen for alcohol use and alcohol-related problems. The DAST-10 is a 10-question screen for drug use. The Opioid Risk Tool and the Pain Medication Questionnaire are aimed at people with chronic pain and look at risk factors and concerns around pain-medication use.

Why would a psychiatric clinician care? Alcohol and other substances affect sleep, mood, anxiety and memory, can mimic or worsen ADHD-type symptoms, and interact with many medications. Honest answers help your clinician plan safely; they are part of your confidential health record, not a judgment.

Sleep, concussion, daily living, autism traits and cognitive decline

• PSQI (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index): a self-report of sleep quality and disturbances, with a section a bed partner can complete. Creyos labels it for ages 19 to 83. Poor sleep is one of the most common reasons for weak scores on cognitive tasks.
• RPQ (Rivermead Post-Concussion Symptoms Questionnaire): 16 questions about symptoms after a head injury, labelled 18+.
• IADL (Instrumental Activities of Daily Living): eight questions about practical skills such as managing money, medications and transport, labelled 18+.
• AQ (Autism Spectrum Quotient): a 50-question measure of autism-spectrum traits, labelled 16+. A trait questionnaire is not an autism assessment, and Willow & Stone does not do autism assessments.
• IQCODE-SR: a self-report about changes in everyday thinking in older adults, labelled 18+. For memory concerns, our page on when to get memory tested explains who to see.

What Creyos doesn't include, and why it matters

According to Creyos's materials, the platform does not offer the MoCA, the Insomnia Severity Index, the PHQ-A (the adolescent version of the PHQ), the Conners scales or the ADHD-RS-5. Two practical consequences follow. First, because Creyos labels the PHQ-9 for adults and offers no PHQ-A, a clinician seeing a teenager may use a different depression measure outside the platform. Second, if another clinician has asked for a specific scale that is not on this list, it will have to come from elsewhere.

Questionnaire results on their own are also coded differently from testing. Creyos's billing guidance notes that brief questionnaires done in the same session as cognitive testing should not be billed separately under the screening code 96127. That is a coding detail, not a statement about your coverage; see what a Creyos assessment costs for more.

Which questionnaires you would complete at Willow & Stone

This has not been confirmed. Dr. Stacey Forbes, DNP, APRN, PMHNP-BC, chooses what is relevant for each person, and she reviews the results with you as part of your evaluation rather than sending scores without context. Ask our team which questionnaires to expect, and whether you will complete them at home or in the office, when you book. Creyos says its questionnaires work on desktop, tablet and mobile, but its help center does not recommend phones for the cognitive tasks, so plan to use a computer or a tablet of at least eight inches if tasks are included.

Questionnaires are also useful well beyond a single visit. Repeating the PHQ-9 or GAD-7 over time is a core part of measurement-based psychiatric care, and our guide to screening versus diagnosis explains why a questionnaire score opens a conversation rather than closing one.

Common Questions

Sources & Further Reading

• Creyos — Standardized Questionnaires (PDF)
• Creyos — Behavioral health questionnaires
• Creyos — ADHD Report Interpretation Guide (PDF)
• Creyos — CPT code 96127 (blog)
• U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, National Center for PTSD — PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5)
• Hirschfeld et al. 2000, Am J Psychiatry — The Mood Disorder Questionnaire (PubMed)
• Creyos Help Center — Device requirements

This article is general education, not a diagnosis or advice for your situation. Creyos results support, and never replace, a clinical evaluation; only a clinician who has evaluated you can diagnose a condition or recommend treatment. Do not start, stop, or change a medication without talking to the clinician who prescribes it.