Psychometric properties of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21) in a non-clinical Iranian sample

The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-21) was designed to measure the core symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress and has demonstrated excellent psychometric properties across studies mostly conducted in Western societies. However, the psychometric properties of this measure remained untested amongst non-clinical Iranian population. This paper presents the results of a preliminary study which examined the factor structure, reliability, convergent validity and discriminant validity of the DASS-21 Persian version amongst a non-clinical sample (n=378) of the Iranian population. All participants completed DASS-21, the Beck Depression Inventory and the Four Systems Anxiety Questionnaire. A 3-factor model for the 21-item DASS was supported by the data. Results also supported reliability and validity (convergent validity and discriminant validity) of the three scales of the DASS-21. These findings suggest that the Persian version of the DASS-21 has satisfactory psychometric properties and can be used amongst the Iranian adult population.