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Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21

DASS-21
psychologyhealth sciencesPublic domain

Permission: Public domain. Free to use, reproduce and adapt without asking permission. Cite the original publication.

A 21-item short form of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales, with three 7-item subscales measuring depression, anxiety, and stress over the past week.

Items
21
Response format
4-point severity/frequency scale (0-3)
Version
1.0
Subscales
3

Ready-to-cite methods sentence

Depression, anxiety, and stress were measured with the DASS-21 (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995), three 7-item subscales with good-to-excellent internal consistency (α = .88 for depression, .82 for anxiety, and .90 for stress in a UK adult sample; Henry & Crawford, 2005).

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Reliability & validation

Source
Henry & Crawford, 2005
Validation population
Community adults (Henry & Crawford, 2005)
Cronbach's α
0.82–0.9

Subscales

DepressionAnxietyStress

Response anchors

Did not apply to me at all · Applied to me to some degree, or some of the time · Applied to me to a considerable degree, or a good part of time · Applied to me very much, or most of the time

Known limitations

The 21-item short form yields less stable subscale scores than the 42-item original; the anxiety and stress subscales correlate, reflecting shared negative affectivity.

Original citation

Lovibond, S. H., & Lovibond, P. F. (1995). Manual for the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (2nd ed.). Psychology Foundation.

Questions researchers ask

What does the DASS-21 measure?

A 21-item short form of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales, with three 7-item subscales measuring depression, anxiety, and stress over the past week.

How many items does the DASS-21 have?

The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) has 21 items across 3 subscales: Depression, Anxiety, Stress.

Is the DASS-21 free to use?

The DASS-21 is in the public domain: free to use, reproduce and adapt without seeking permission. Cite the original source.

Is the DASS-21 reliable?

Validation studies report Cronbach's α of 0.82–0.9 (Henry & Crawford, 2005). See the reliability section for the population studied and full statistics.

Who developed the DASS-21, and how do I cite it?

Lovibond, S. H., & Lovibond, P. F. (1995). Manual for the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (2nd ed.). Psychology Foundation.

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Related scales

HADSHospital Anxiety and Depression ScaleBAIBeck Anxiety InventoryBDI-IIBeck Depression Inventory-IICES-DCenter for Epidemiologic Studies Depression ScaleEPDSEdinburgh Postnatal Depression ScaleGAD-7Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7

Library entry verified September 2026. Metadata is provided for reference; item wording is available inside Folio Surveyor, subject to each instrument's licensing.