Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS-21): Construct Validity Problem in Hispanics

Abstract

The main purpose of this research was to examine the construct validity of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS-21) in order to determine whether it is able to adequately discriminate between symptoms of depression and anxiety in the Hispanic population in Puerto Rico. This study has an instrumental design. A total of 1073 Hispanics participated in this psychometric study. The results showed that the DASS-21 has serious psychometric deficiencies, especially related to the construct validity, as well as convergent and discriminatory validity. In addition, it was shown that DASS-21 do not replicate the three-dimensional structure of the original instrument in the Hispanic community. Finally, it was confirmed that the DASS-21 have difficulty in properly identifying and discriminating between symptoms associated with depression and anxiety in a Hispanic population.