Title of Assessment
DASS (Depression Anxiety Stress Scales)
DASS-Y Depression, Anxiety, Stress scale Youth
Author(s)
Lovibond and Lovibond
Year of Publication/Publisher
DASS: 1995, University of New South Whales in Australia
DASS-Y: 2022
Identify Type of Assessment
Construct
criterion validation
normative
questionnaire
Cost & How to Access Assessment
$55
Can also download manual online
https://www2.psy.unsw.edu.au/Groups/Dass/order.htm
Population
Can be used for children 14 years old and up but recommended to use the youth version for children below age 14
Diagnosis does not necessarily impact whether when to use this assessment
Appropriate Settings
Acute
Community based
School based
Outpatient
Purpose of Assessment & Function(s)/Area(s) Assessed
The depression scale measures dysphoria, hopelessness, devaluation of life, self-deprecation, lack of interest, anhedonia, and inertia.
The anxiety scale measures autonomic arousal, skeletal muscle effects, and situational anxiety.
The stress scale measures sensitivity to levels of chronic nonspecific arousal, difficulty relaxing, nervous arousal, and being easily agitated.
Administration
Each scale has 14 items divided into 2-5 subscale items
Depression scale, Anxiety Scale, Stress Scale
Can be administered to a group or individually
You do not have to administer all three scales but since each of them are closely related it would be useful to use all three.
10-20 minutes to administer
DASS-Y: 21 items, 7 items per scale (standalone instrument with scores that cannot be directly compared to adult questionnaire).
User Qualifications
The DASS questionnaire is a public domain- which means permission to use the DASS is not needed
No special skills are required to administer- whoever is reading and interpreting results should have appropriate training to understand results
Materials Required
Questionnaire
Scoring sheet
Pen/pencil
Scoring Procedure
There is a scoring template which indicates the items that belong to each scale
Subjects are asked to use a 4 point severity/frequency scale to rate how often they experience each state over the past week
Multiply summed scores by 2. The full DASS will be 14 items per scale. The scoring for the DASS goes as follows:
Normal: depression 0-9, anxiety 0-7, stress 0-14
Mild: depression 10-13, anxiety 8-9, stress 15-18
Moderate: depression 14-20, anxiety 10-14, stress 19-25
Severe: depression 21-27, anxiety 15-19, stress 26-33
Extremely severe: depression 28+, anxiety 20+, stress 34+
Psychometrics/Standardization
Three scales are moderately inter-correlated
Can be standardized if fully completed, but non-standardized if all items are not administered
The correlation coefficient for the DASS depression subscale was .713, DASS anxiety subscale .785, DASS stress subscale .813- which signal weak to adequate scores
Strengths & Weaknesses of Assessment
Strengths:
wide variety of coverage between the three subscales
does not take that long to administer
can be used anywhere
not expensive
accessible
multiple versions available
do not have to administer all of it at once
Weaknesses:
scoring could be complicated at times; mean scores may not be fully compliant with different ages that the DASS can be administered to
cannot diagnose
may not be completely reliable
References
Lovibond, S.H. & Lovibond, P.F. (1995). Manual for the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales. (2nd. Ed.) Sydney: Psychology Foundation.
Brown, T. A., Chorpita, B. F., Korotitsch, W., & Barlow, D. H. (1997). Psychometric properties of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) in clinical samples. Behaviour research and therapy, 35(1), 79–89. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0005-7967(96)00068-x