Scale library · Psychology & mental health
DASS-21 scale: Lovibond & Lovibond (1995)
The DASS was developed by Lovibond and Lovibond (1995) to measure three related negative emotional states: depression, anxiety and stress. The full version has 42 items; the DASS-21 keeps 7 items per subscale and takes about half the time, and the official DASS website recommends it for research. It is common in theses on the mental health of students, healthcare workers and employees, and as an outcome in models of academic or job stress.
Cite the original, not the blog.
- Model or scale: DASS-21
- Constructs: 3
- Items: 21
Original English items
Items marked (R) are reverse-coded: recode them before computing reliability or scale scores. Replace bracketed placeholders such as [system] with the name of the system, brand or organization you study.
Depression (D, 7 items)
| Code | Item wording | Reverse-coded |
|---|---|---|
| D3 | I couldn't seem to experience any positive feeling at all | No |
| D5 | I found it difficult to work up the initiative to do things | No |
| D10 | I felt that I had nothing to look forward to | No |
| D13 | I felt down-hearted and blue | No |
| D16 | I was unable to become enthusiastic about anything | No |
| D17 | I felt I wasn't worth much as a person | No |
| D21 | I felt that life was meaningless | No |
Anxiety (A, 7 items)
| Code | Item wording | Reverse-coded |
|---|---|---|
| A2 | I was aware of dryness of my mouth | No |
| A4 | I experienced breathing difficulty (eg, excessively rapid breathing, breathlessness in the absence of physical exertion) | No |
| A7 | I experienced trembling (eg, in the hands) | No |
| A9 | I was worried about situations in which I might panic and make a fool of myself | No |
| A15 | I felt I was close to panic | No |
| A19 | I was aware of the action of my heart in the absence of physical exertion (eg, sense of heart rate increase, heart missing a beat) | No |
| A20 | I felt scared without any good reason | No |
Stress (S, 7 items)
| Code | Item wording | Reverse-coded |
|---|---|---|
| S1 | I found it hard to wind down | No |
| S6 | I tended to over-react to situations | No |
| S8 | I felt that I was using a lot of nervous energy | No |
| S11 | I found myself getting agitated | No |
| S12 | I found it difficult to relax | No |
| S14 | I was intolerant of anything that kept me from getting on with what I was doing | No |
| S18 | I felt that I was rather touchy | No |
Response scale
4-point severity scale, not an agreement scale, referring to the past week: 0 = Did not apply to me at all, 1 = Applied to me to some degree, or some of the time, 2 = Applied to me to a considerable degree, or a good part of time, 3 = Applied to me very much, or most of the time. Sum the 7 items of each subscale and multiply by 2 for comparability with the DASS-42; each subscale ranges from 0 to 42. There are no reverse-coded items.
Licence and permission
According to the official DASS website (Psychology Foundation of Australia, UNSW), the questionnaire is in the public domain and needs no permission; it may be downloaded and copied without restriction but may not be modified or sold for profit. The manual must be purchased separately.
Sources (APA 7)
- Le, D. T. H., Chan, R. C. K., Hao, J., & Wilkinson, R. B. (2025). The mental health of Australian, Chinese and Vietnamese university students: A cross-cultural comparison of the DASS-21. International Journal of Psychology, 60(4), e70057. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.70057
- Linh, H. N., Trang, L. T. T., Uyen, N. T. T., Tin, P. T., Nam, T. T., & Nghia, V. H. (2025). Prevalence and determinants of mental health problems among Vietnamese undergraduate students across academic disciplines. Indian Journal of Community Medicine, 50(Suppl 3), S417–S426. https://doi.org/10.4103/ijcm.ijcm_810_24
- Lovibond, S. H., & Lovibond, P. F. (1995). Manual for the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (2nd ed.). Psychology Foundation.
- Nguyen, H.-P., Nguyen, T. T. P., Nguyen, N. Q., Van Bui, T., Le, H. A., Hoang, V. T., & Nguyen, T. L. (2026). Prevalence of depression, anxiety and stress and associated workplace stressors among healthcare workers in a tertiary hospital in Vietnam: A cross-sectional study. PLOS One, 21(4), e0347196. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0347196
- Tran, T. D., Tran, T., & Fisher, J. (2013). Validation of the depression anxiety stress scales (DASS) 21 as a screening instrument for depression and anxiety in a rural community-based cohort of northern Vietnamese women. BMC Psychiatry, 13, 24. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-13-24
Vietnamese translation
A Vietnamese translation of every item, with sample-size advice and studies that used the scale, is on the Vietnamese page for this scale.