Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS)

Background

The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) is a set of self-report questionnaires designed to measure the severity of the negative emotional states of depression, anxiety, and tension/stress. The original scales were published as the DASS-42 (with 42 items) and DASS-21 (with 21 items) by
Syd H. Lovibond and Peter F. Lovibond in 1995. The scales generally show high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha > 0.8) and good convergent and discriminant validity. The authors placed the actual questionnaires into the public domain so they can be used freely by clinicians and researchers. However, the official manual and scoring keys remain under copyright by the Psychology Foundation of Australia.

Amira Mohammed Ali and colleagues added the DASS-8 (with 8 items) in 2021 to address psychometric limitations in the DASS-21 and to create a faster, highly efficient screening tool for both clinical settings and large-scale demographic surveys. Despite its reduced length, its psychometric properties hold up remarkably well to its parent scales.

Task Procedure

The DASS-42, DASS-21, and DASS-8 present 42/21/8 items on three subscales: depression (e.g., "I felt that I had nothing to look forward to"), anxiety (e.g., "I was worried about situations in which I might panic and make a fool of myself") and stress (e.g., "I felt that I was using a lot of nervous energy"). Each question provides 4 response options and participants are asked to select the one that related most to their experiences from the last week. Each response scores 0 ("Did not apply to me at all") to 3 points ("Applied to me very much, or most of the time").

What it Measures

The DASS scalres are self-report measures of the severity of current depression, anxiety, and tension/stress.

Psychological domains

• Depression: Persistent feeling of sadness, emptiness, and a loss of interest or pleasure in daily activities.
• Anxiety: Feelings of unease, worry, apprehension, or dread about future events
• Stress: The physical, mental, or emotional responses to real or perceived demands, pressures, or changes

Main Performance Metrics

• Subscale Subscores: Sum of all individual scores on each subscale (Depression, Anxiety, Stress)
• Total Score: Sum of all scores as a measure of 'General Psychological Distress'

Psychiatric Conditions

The DASS scales are routinely used with the patients suffering from

• Affective Disorder
• Anxiety

Test Variations

References

Search Google Scholar for peer-reviewed, published research using the Inquisit Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS).

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Lovibond, S.H. & Lovibond, P.F. (1995). Manual for the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales. (2nd. Ed.) Sydney: Psychology Foundation. ISBN 7334-1423-0.

Antony, M.M., Bieling, P.J., Cox, B.J., Enns, M.W. & Swinson, R.P. (1998). Psychometric properties of the 42-item and 21-item versions of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) in clinical groups and a community sample. Psychological Assessment, 10, 176-181.

Crawford, J.R. & Henry, J.D. (2003). The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS): Normative data and latent structure in a large non-clinical sample. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 42, 111-131.

Szabó, M., & Lovibond, P.F. (2006). Anxiety, depression and tension/stress in children. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 28 3, 195-205.

Page, A.C. Hooke, G.R.; & Morrison, D.L. (2007). Psychometric properties of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) in depressed clinical samples. British Journal of Clinical Psychology. 46, 283-297.

Crawford, J.R., Cayley, C., Lovibond, P.F. Wilson, P.H., & Hartley, C. (2011). Percentile norms and accompanying interval estimates from an Australian general adult population sample for self-report mood scales (BAI, BDI, CRSD, CES-D, DASS, DASS-21, STAI-X, STAI-Y, SRDS, and SRAS). Australian Psychologist, 46, 3-14.

Szabó, M. (2011). The emotional experience associated with worrying: Anxiety, depression or stress? Anxiety, Stress, & Coping: An International Journal, 24, 91-105.

Ali, A. M., Alkhamees, A. A., Hori, H., Kim, Y., and Kunugi, H. (2021). The depression anxiety stress scale 21: development and validation of the depression anxiety stress scale 8-item in psychiatric patients and the general public for easier mental health measurement in a post-COVID-19 world. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 18:10142. doi: 10.3390/ijerph181910142

Ali, A.M.; Hori, H.; Kim, Y.; Kunugi, H. The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale 8-items expresses robust psychometric properties as an ideal shorter version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale 21 among healthy respondents from three continents. Front Psychol 2022, 13, 799769, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2022.799769.

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