Depression Anxiety Stress Scales DASS-42
Depression Anxiety Stress Scales DASS-42 overview
Creator and Context
The DASS-42 is the original full length Depression Anxiety Stress Scales, developed by Syd Lovibond and Peter Lovibond and published in 1995 by the Psychology Foundation of Australia.
It measures three related but distinct negative emotional states with 14 items each. The DASS-21 is the short form, and its scores are doubled to compare against the same normative data.
The questionnaire is in the public domain. It may not be modified or sold for profit.
Presenting Conditions
The DASS-42 produces three subscales of 14 items each:
Depression: dysphoria, hopelessness, devaluation of life, self deprecation, lack of interest, anhedonia and inertia
Anxiety: autonomic arousal, skeletal muscle effects, situational anxiety and subjective anxious affect
Stress: difficulty relaxing, nervous arousal, being easily upset or agitated, irritability and impatience
Administration
Self administered in about 7 to 10 minutes, individually or in groups. No special skills are required to administer it. Each item is rated for the past week from Did not apply to me at all (0) to Applied to me very much, or most of the time (3).
Desired Audience
Adults and older adolescents. It can be used from around age 14 with typical language skills. Below that, the DASS-Y is the appropriate version, and DASS-Y scores are not comparable to the adult forms.
Separating depression, anxiety and stress rather than lumping them into one distress score is what makes the DASS useful. The stress scale in particular picks up the agitated, over reactive presentation that a depression measure alone would miss entirely.
Considerations
The severity labels describe the full range of the population, not the severity of a disorder. As the authors put it, mild means the person is above the population mean but still well below the typical severity of people seeking help. It does not mean a mild disorder.
The DASS is dimensional. It has no direct implications for allocating people to diagnostic categories.
There is no suicide item. Items relating to suicidal tendencies did not load on any scale. Risk must be assessed separately.
The scales may not be modified. The DASS-10 is a third party derivative, not a Lovibond instrument.
The authors are explicit that computed scores should not be made available to respondents, and that automated interpretation should not be provided to them.
How to score the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales DASS-42
Conducting the assessment
The person rates 42 items from 0 to 3 for the past week. Each subscale sums 14 items, giving a range of 0 to 42 per subscale. There is no standard total score.
Interpretation
Each subscale is scored 0 to 42.
Severity bands from the DASS manual, by subscale:
Normal: depression 0 to 9, anxiety 0 to 7, stress 0 to 14
Mild: depression 10 to 13, anxiety 8 to 9, stress 15 to 18
Moderate: depression 14 to 20, anxiety 10 to 14, stress 19 to 25
Severe: depression 21 to 27, anxiety 15 to 19, stress 26 to 33
Extremely severe: depression 28 and above, anxiety 20 and above, stress 34 and above
DASS-21 scores are multiplied by 2 before being compared with these bands.
Clinical Considerations
Read the three subscales separately. A person with a normal depression score and a severe stress score needs something quite different from the reverse.
Assess suicide risk separately. The DASS does not cover it.
Do not treat the labels as diagnoses. They are population descriptors.
Depression Anxiety Stress Scales DASS-42 use cases
Measuring depression, anxiety and stress as three distinct states
Assessment at intake and monitoring across treatment
Research and service level reporting
Screening in community and clinical settings
Category
Depression
Research Summary
Lovibond, S. H., & Lovibond, P. F. (1995). Manual for the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (2nd ed.). Sydney: Psychology Foundation of Australia.
Lovibond, P. F., & Lovibond, S. H. (1995). The structure of negative emotional states: Comparison of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) with the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 33(3), 335 to 343.
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(2), 111 to 131.
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Note on Assessment licensing
Some assessments are copyright protected and require a licence or the copyright holder's permission for clinical, commercial or digital use. Where that applies, obtaining and maintaining that permission is the responsibility of the practice or organisation using the assessment. Tacklit provides the digital administration, scoring and reporting. We do not grant, transfer or supply rights to the underlying instrument.
