(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- A one-page questionnaire has been shown to be an effective tool to help primary care physicians screen for some common psychiatric disorders.

A diagnosis of depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is often made by a primary care doctor and not a psychiatrist, and most prescriptions for antidepressants are written by primary care physicians.

"For these millions of people and their primary care providers, the M-3 screener is a tremendously helpful resource," lead study author Bradley Gaynes, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, was quoted as saying.

A one-page, 27-item questionnaire that is available for free online to screen for the four common psychiatric conditions was compared in a study to traditional diagnoses. Results show the questionnaire -- called the My Mood Monitor (M-3) checklist -- was effective in screening for any mood or anxiety disorder 83 percent of the time and for a specific psychiatric disorder in 76 percent of cases.

The study involved about 650 adults age 18 or older who sought care at their primary care physicians' office. Participants filled out a paper version of the questionnaire, which was then used by their doctor to discuss their emotional heath.

Source: Annals of Family Medicine, March/April 2010