Depression Anxiety Stress Scale: Is It Valid for Children and Adolescents?

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Author(s)
Patrick, Jeff
Dyck, Murray
Bramston, Paul
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2010
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) is used to assess the severity of symptoms in child and adolescent samples although its validity in these populations has not been demonstrated. The authors assessed the latent structure of the 21-item version of the scale in samples of 425 and 285 children and adolescents on two occasions, one year apart. On each occasion, parallel analyses suggested that only one component should be extracted, indicating that the test does not differentiate depression, anxiety, and stress in children and adolescents. The results provide additional evidence that adult models ...
View more >The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) is used to assess the severity of symptoms in child and adolescent samples although its validity in these populations has not been demonstrated. The authors assessed the latent structure of the 21-item version of the scale in samples of 425 and 285 children and adolescents on two occasions, one year apart. On each occasion, parallel analyses suggested that only one component should be extracted, indicating that the test does not differentiate depression, anxiety, and stress in children and adolescents. The results provide additional evidence that adult models of depression do not describe the experience of depression in children and adolescents.
View less >
View more >The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) is used to assess the severity of symptoms in child and adolescent samples although its validity in these populations has not been demonstrated. The authors assessed the latent structure of the 21-item version of the scale in samples of 425 and 285 children and adolescents on two occasions, one year apart. On each occasion, parallel analyses suggested that only one component should be extracted, indicating that the test does not differentiate depression, anxiety, and stress in children and adolescents. The results provide additional evidence that adult models of depression do not describe the experience of depression in children and adolescents.
View less >
Journal Title
Journal of Clinical Psychology
Volume
66
Issue
9
Copyright Statement
© 2010 British Psychological Society. Published by Wiley-Blackwell. This is the pre-peer-reviewed version of the following article: Depression anxiety stress scale (DASS): Is it valid for children and adolescents?, British Journal of Clinical Psychology (BJCP), Volume 66, Issue 9, pages 996–1007, September 2010, which has been published in final form at http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jclp.20696
Subject
Health, Clinical and Counselling Psychology
Psychology
Cognitive Sciences