Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21)

The 21-item DASS is a set of three self-assessment measurement scales which aim to statistically calculate the emotional states of depression, anxiety and stress. A 4-point severity scale measures the levels each “state” the participant has reported experiencing over the last 7 days. The research categorized depression, anxiety, and stress scores into a dichotomous response (“yes/no”) before submitting the results to a univariate analysis. Participants with a cut-off score of ≥10 in depression, ≥8 in anxiety, and ≥ 15 in stress dimension were interpreted as likely experiencing these disorders (as referenced by the DASS manual) (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995). There is abundant evidence confirming the preliminary reliability and construct soundness of the Turkish translation of Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). Cronbach’s alpha was 0.87 for the depression, 0.85 for the stress, and 0.81 for the anxiety, indicating a good internal consistency for each subscale (Sarıçam, 2018).

The IES-R and DASS-21 were used in the following COVID-19 studies in various countries: Vietnam, Philippines, China and Poland (Le, Dang, et al., 2020; Le, Lai, et al., 2020; Tee, Tee, et al., 2020; Wang, Chudzicka-Czupała, Grabowski, Pan, Adamus, Wan, et al., 2020; Wang, Pan, Wan, Tan, Xu, McIntyre, et al., 2020).