title: Psychometric properties of the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 in older primary care patients.
abstract: The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) was designed to efficiently measure the core symptoms of anxiety and depression and has demonstrated positive psychometric properties in adult samples of anxiety and depression patients and student samples. Despite these findings, the psychometric properties of the DASS remain untested in older adults, for whom the identification of efficient measures of these constructs is especially important. To determine the psychometric properties of the DASS 21-item version in older adults, we analyzed data from 222 medical patients seeking treatment to manage worry. Consistent with younger samples, a three-factor structure best fit the data. Results also indicated good internal consistency, excellent convergent validity, and good discriminative validity, especially for the Depression scale. Receiver operating curve analyses indicated that the DASS-21 predicted the diagnostic presence of generalized anxiety disorder and depression as well as other commonly used measures. These data suggest that the DASS may be used with older adults in lieu of multiple scales designed to measure similar constructs, thereby reducing participant burden and facilitating assessment in settings with limited assessment resources.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Technical University of Dresden, Germany. gloster@psychologie.tu-dresden.de
authors.forename: Andrew T
authors.initials: AT
authors.lastname: Gloster
authors.forename: Howard M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Rhoades
authors.forename: Diane
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Novy
authors.forename: Jens
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Klotsche
authors.forename: Ashley
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Senior
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Kunik
authors.forename: Nancy
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Wilson
authors.forename: Melinda A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Stanley
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis*; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011320:Primary Health Care; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires