Depression, anxiety and stress scales, DASS-21: construct validity problem in hispanics

• Juan Aníbal González-Rivera ^[1] ; Orlando M. Pagán-Torres ^[1] ; Emily M. Pérez-Torres ^[1]
  1. [1] Ponce Health Sciences University

     Ponce Health Sciences University

     Puerto Rico

     
• Localización: EJIHPE: European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education, ISSN 2174-8144, ISSN-e 2254-9625, Vol. 10, Nº. 1, 2020, págs. 375-389
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • 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.