Clinical instrument

Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21)

A 21-item self-report of the negative emotional states of depression, anxiety, and stress over the past week. Each 7-item subscale is summed and multiplied by 2 for comparability with DASS-42 norms, then mapped to severity bands. Administer under clinician oversight.

All measures

This is a clinical instrument. It is not publicly self-administered — a clinician assigns it through a secure patient link.

At a glance

Items

Response scale

4-point (Did not apply to me at all … Applied to me very much, or most of the time)

Est. time

~3 min

Subscales

Norms

Percent-of-maximum

Access

Clinician patient-link

What it measures

The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) 21-item form measures the three negative emotional states its name lists, each with a 7-item subscale covering the past week. Because the DASS-21 is a half-length form, each subscale sum is doubled to restore the original DASS-42 metric before the published severity thresholds are applied.

The instrument is in the public domain, and its severity labels (normal through extremely severe, per subscale) describe symptom-report ranges rather than diagnoses.

Psychometric properties

The notes below are reproduced from the platform's psychometrics register for this instrument — the same source-cited reliability, validity, and norms text that accompanies its downloadable report.

Subscale internal consistency is high (Depression alpha around 0.91, Anxiety around 0.84, Stress around 0.90) (Antony et al., 1998; Henry & Crawford, 2005).

Confirmatory factor analysis supports the three-factor structure, and the subscales show good convergent validity with the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories (Henry & Crawford, 2005).

Large normative data exist (e.g., Henry & Crawford's UK sample, N = 1,794); subscale scores are multiplied by 2 for comparability with DASS-42 norms.

Subscales

Depression 7 items

Anxiety 7 items

Stress 7 items

Example item

“I found it hard to wind down”

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

Illustrative only. During administration items are presented one screen-set at a time; response-key direction is never shown to respondents.

Scoring & interpretation

Each subscale is summed (with any published multiplier) and compared against its own cutoff bands.

Band	Threshold	Interpretation
Depression: Normal	≥ 0	Depression score 0–9 (×2): within the normal range.
Depression: Mild	≥ 10	Depression score 10–13 (×2): mild.
Depression: Moderate	≥ 14	Depression score 14–20 (×2): moderate.
Depression: Severe	≥ 21	Depression score 21–27 (×2): severe.
Depression: Extremely severe	≥ 28	Depression score 28+ (×2): extremely severe.
Anxiety: Normal	≥ 0	Anxiety score 0–7 (×2): within the normal range.
Anxiety: Mild	≥ 8	Anxiety score 8–9 (×2): mild.
Anxiety: Moderate	≥ 10	Anxiety score 10–14 (×2): moderate.
Anxiety: Severe	≥ 15	Anxiety score 15–19 (×2): severe.
Anxiety: Extremely severe	≥ 20	Anxiety score 20+ (×2): extremely severe.
Stress: Normal	≥ 0	Stress score 0–14 (×2): within the normal range.
Stress: Mild	≥ 15	Stress score 15–18 (×2): mild.
Stress: Moderate	≥ 19	Stress score 19–25 (×2): moderate.
Stress: Severe	≥ 26	Stress score 26–33 (×2): severe.
Stress: Extremely severe	≥ 34	Stress score 34+ (×2): extremely severe.

Source & citation

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

Scoring. Subscale scores are multiplied by 2 and mapped to severity bands per Lovibond & Lovibond (1995).

Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) © Lovibond & Lovibond (1995). The DASS is in the public domain and free to use; please cite the source.

References

Lovibond, S. H., & Lovibond, P. F. (1995). Manual for the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (2nd ed.). Psychology Foundation of Australia.
Antony, M. M., Bieling, P. J., Cox, B. J., Enns, M. W., & Swinson, R. P. (1998). Psychometric properties of the 42-item and 21-item versions of the DASS in clinical and community samples. Psychological Assessment, 10(2), 176-181.
Henry, J. D., & Crawford, J. R. (2005). The short-form version of the DASS-21: construct validity and normative data in a large non-clinical sample. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 44(2), 227-239.