Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10)

K10

psychologyhealth sciencesFree for research use

Permission: Free for research use. Free for non-commercial academic research, with no licence fee. Cite the original publication.

A 10-item scale measuring non-specific psychological distress (anxiety and depressive symptoms) over the past 30 days, widely used in population health surveys.

Items

Response format

5-point frequency scale (1-5)

Version

1.0

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Psychological distress was measured with the K10 (Kessler et al., 2002), a 10-item scale with excellent internal consistency (α = .93; Kessler et al., 2003); higher scores indicate greater distress.

Citing this in a methods section? This scale spans more than one discipline, so the style depends on where you publish. See the APA 7 or Vancouver guides, or compare all six citation styles.

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Reliability & validation

Validation population

US national mail and telephone survey samples, with clinical validation in a local sample (Kessler et al., 2002)

Cronbach's α

0.93

Response anchors

None of the time · A little of the time · Some of the time · Most of the time · All of the time

Known limitations

A dimensional distress screen, not diagnostic of any specific disorder; culturally-specific cutoffs differ across national surveys.

Original citation

Kessler, R. C., Andrews, G., Colpe, L. J., Hiripi, E., Mroczek, D. K., Normand, S.-L. T., Walters, E. E., & Zaslavsky, A. M. (2002). Short screening scales to monitor population prevalences and trends in non-specific psychological distress. Psychological Medicine, 32(6), 959-976.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291702006074

Questions researchers ask

What does the K10 measure?

A 10-item scale measuring non-specific psychological distress (anxiety and depressive symptoms) over the past 30 days, widely used in population health surveys.

How many items does the K10 have?

The Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10) (K10) has 10 items.

Is the K10 free to use?

The K10 is free to use for non-commercial academic research. You don't need to pay a license fee, but you should always cite the original publication.

Is the K10 reliable?

Validation studies report Cronbach's α of 0.93. See the reliability section for the population studied and full statistics.

Who developed the K10, and how do I cite it?

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Library entry verified September 2026. Metadata is provided for reference; item wording is available inside Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing.