The Italian version of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21: Factor structure and psychometric properties on community and clinical samples.
OBJECTIVE
The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) is the short version of a self-report measure that was originally developed to provide maximum differentiation between depressive and anxious symptoms. Despite encouraging evidence, the factor structure and other features of the DASS-21 are yet to be firmly established.


METHODS
A community sample of 417 participants and two clinical groups (32 depressive patients and 25 anxious patients) completed the Italian version of the DASS-21 along with several measures of psychopathology.


RESULTS
Confirmatory factor analyses suggested that the DASS-21 is a measure of general distress plus three additional orthogonal dimensions (anxiety, depression, and stress). The internal consistency and temporal stability of the measure were good; each DASS-21 scale correlated more strongly with a measure of a similar construct, demonstrating good convergent and divergent validity. Lastly, the DASS-21 demonstrated good criterion-oriented validity.


CONCLUSIONS
The validity of the Italian DASS-21 and its utility, both for community and clinical individuals, are supported.
Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Italy. Electronic address: gioia.bottesi@unipd.it.
Gioia
G
Bottesi
Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Italy.
Marta
M
Ghisi
Department of Developmental and Socialization Psychology, University of Padova, Italy.
Gianmarco
G
Altoè
Department of Health Sciences, University of Firenze, Italy.
Erica
E
Conforti
Institute of Behavioral and Cognitive Psychology and Psychotherapy (IPSICO), Firenze, Italy.
Gabriele
G
Melli
Department of Health Sciences, University of Firenze, Italy.
Claudio
C
Sica
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001007:Anxiety / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D001008:Anxiety Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003866:Depressive Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012494:Sampling Studies; D057566:Self Report; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D014177:Translations