Voelker J, Wang K, Tang W, et al. - The present study was conducted to explore whether depression symptom severity, as measured by 9-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) score, of patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) is associated with short-term risk of a hospital encounter (ER visit or inpatient stay). Between April 2016 and June 2019, researchers enrolled adults with ≥ 1 PHQ-9 assessment in an outpatient setting (index date) and ≥ 1 MDD diagnosis within 6 months prior from the de-identified Optum Electronic Health Record database. Individuals were classified by depression symptom severity based on PHQ-9 scores obtained by natural language processing. The study enrolled 280,145 patients with MDD and ≥ 1 PHQ-9 assessment in an outpatient setting. The data demonstrate that depression symptom severity is a key driver of the short-term risk of hospital encounters, emphasizing the need for timely interventions that can ameliorate depression symptom severity.