Depression Anxiety Stress Scales – 21

What it measures

A brief, freely available measure of three related but distinct negative emotional states. Depression captures dysphoria, hopelessness, devaluation of life, self-deprecation, anhedonia, and inertia. Anxiety captures autonomic arousal, situational anxiety, and subjective anxious affect. Stress captures difficulty relaxing, nervous arousal, and being easily upset or irritable. One of the most widely used clinical screening tools worldwide — free, quick, and validated across clinical, community, and student populations in over 50 countries. Particularly valuable because it distinguishes depression from anxiety more cleanly than single-factor screeners and captures stress as a distinct construct relevant to occupational and health research.

Response format

Likert (0–3, did not apply to me at all to applied to me very much) over the past week

Representative items

• I found it hard to wind down. (Stress)
• I was aware of dryness of my mouth. (Anxiety)
• I couldn't seem to experience any positive feeling at all. (Depression)
• I found myself getting agitated. (Stress)
• I felt that life was meaningless. (Depression)

Usage notes & scoring

DASS-21 scores are multiplied by 2 before applying severity cut-offs. Normal/Mild/Moderate/Severe/Extremely Severe cut-offs differ by subscale — see the official DASS website. Freely available from UNSW Psychology. The Stress subscale is uniquely valuable — no direct equivalent in the PHQ/GAD battery.

Recommended companion scales

Citation

Lovibond, S.H., & Lovibond, P.F. (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), 335–343.

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