CORE-10: The 10-Question Psychological Distress Check

The CORE-10 is a ten-question measure of psychological distress over the last week. It was built in the UK from the longer CORE-OM and introduced by Barkham and colleagues in 2013. Each answer scores 0 to 4, two statements are scored the other way, and the total runs from 0 to 40. A higher score means more distress over those seven days.

It is short on purpose. The CORE System Trust created it as one short form that could be filled in week after week, so change shows up quickly. The Lovon app uses CORE-10 for the same reason: to follow how people feel over time. Lovon uses it here and in the app with written permission from the CORE System Trust, and the wording of every statement is exactly as on the official form.

1. Read each statement and think about how often you felt that way over the last week, not today and not in general. 2. Pick the answer that is closest: Not at all, Only occasionally, Sometimes, Often, or Most or all of the time. On a phone you get one statement per screen; on a computer you see the whole form. 3. If one statement does not fit, you can leave it out. With nine answers the score is still worked out; with two or more missing, it is not. 4. Read your score and what it means, then save it to your weekly history and add a weekly reminder to your calendar.

It takes about two minutes. Your answers stay in this browser. Nothing is sent to us.

Eight statements score 0 for Not at all up to 4 for Most or all of the time. Statements 2 and 3 are worded the positive way round ("I have felt I have someone to turn to for support when needed" and "I have felt able to cope when things go wrong"), so they score 4 for Not at all down to 0 for Most or all of the time. Add the ten together for a total from 0 to 40.

If exactly one statement is left out, the official form says to add the nine scores, divide by nine and multiply by ten. With two or more left out, no score should be given. The CORE System Trust also advises using only the total: with ten statements there are too few to give separate scores for areas like mood or coping.

Barkham and colleagues set a cut-off of 11: below it, scores look like those of the general population; from 11 up, they look more like those of people seeking help for psychological distress (Barkham et al., 2013). The CORE-10 User Manual (Connell and Barkham, 2007) adds boundaries at 15, 20 and 25, as quoted by CORE System Trust trustee Chris Evans (2021), who points out that the manual does not explain how they were chosen. We use 11, 15 and 25 as rough guides and our own plain words:

1. 0 to 10: low distress over the last week. 2. 11 to 14: some distress. Common in a rough stretch and worth watching for a few weeks. 3. 15 to 24: a lot of distress. Several parts of the week were hard. Talking to a doctor or a licensed professional may help. 4. 25 to 40: very high distress. Talking to a doctor or a licensed professional may help, and sooner is better than later.

One score is a snapshot of seven days. A line of scores tells you far more: whether a bad week was a blip, whether things are slowly getting heavier, whether something you changed is helping. The same 2013 paper found that a change of 6 points or more between two CORE-10 scores is unlikely to be measurement noise, so this page tells you when a change is that size and when it is ordinary week-to-week movement.

Take it on the same day each week, at about the same time, so the weeks compare fairly. The weekly reminder puts it in your calendar. If you also want a daily read, the 60-second mental health check-in and the mood tracker save to the same history on this device.

Statement 6 asks whether, over the last week, you made plans to end your life. It is part of the form because it matters more than any score. If you answer it with anything other than Not at all, your result opens with ways to reach a person right now, including the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988), and your score is still there below it.

The CORE-10 measures how much distress you felt, not why. It cannot name a condition or tell you what you have; only a doctor or licensed professional can do that, with far more than ten answers. It has no questions about wellbeing or strengths, so a low score means little distress, not that life is going well. And it covers one week only: a hard week after a breakup, a deadline or a sleepless stretch will show up, and that is the point.

If one area keeps scoring high, look at it on its own. The stress level test shows what is driving pressure, the burnout test separates exhaustion from cynicism, the sleep calculator helps with nights, and journal prompts give a hard week somewhere to go. If the dark months make every week heavier, try the winter blues test. For a bad week right now, what to do on a bad day and feeling overwhelmed are good places to start, and the 5-minute vagus nerve reset helps when panic or tension is high.