Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Jul 19;12(7):e0180557.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0180557. eCollection 2017.

Reliability, convergent validity and factor structure of the DASS-21 in a sample of Vietnamese adolescents

Minh Thi Hong Le  1 , Thach Duc Tran  1 , Sara Holton  1 , Huong Thanh Nguyen  2 , Rory Wolfe  3 , Jane Fisher  1
Affiliations

Reliability, convergent validity and factor structure of the DASS-21 in a sample of Vietnamese adolescents

Minh Thi Hong Le et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Objectives: To assess the internal consistency, latent structure and convergent validity of the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) among adolescents in Vietnam.

Method: An anonymous, self-completed questionnaire was conducted among 1,745 high school students in Hanoi, Vietnam between October, 2013 and January, 2014. Confirmatory factor analyses were performed to assess the latent structure of the DASS-21. Factorial invariance between girls and boys was examined. Cronbach alphas and correlation coefficients between DASS-21 factor scores and the domain scores of the Duke Health Profile Adolescent Vietnamese validated version (ADHP-V) were calculated to assess DASS-21 internal consistency and convergent validity.

Results: A total of 1,606/ 1,745 (92.6%) students returned the questionnaire. Of those, 1,387 students provided complete DASS-21 data. The scale demonstrated adequate internal consistency (Cronbach α: 0.761 to 0.906). A four-factor model showed the best fit to the data. Items loaded significantly on a common general distress factor, the depression, and the anxiety factors, but few on the stress factor (p<0.05). DASS-21 convergent validity was confirmed with moderate correlation coefficients (-0.47 to -0.66) between its factor scores and the ADHP-V mental health related domains.

Conclusions: The DASS-21 is reliable and suitable for use to assess symptoms of common mental health problems, especially depression and anxiety among Vietnamese adolescents. However, its ability in detecting stress among these adolescents may be limited. Further research is warrant to explore these results.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Factor loadings of the DASS-21-V among a sample of adolescents in Vietnam (errors for all items were removed for simplicity of the figure).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. World Health Organisation (2008) The Global Burden of Disease 2004 Update. Switzerland. 160 p.
    1. World Health Organisation (2014) Mental disorders.
    1. World Health Organisation (2014) Child and adolescent mental health.
    1. Lovibond PF, Lovibond SH (1995) The structure of negative emotional states: comparison of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) with the Beck Depression and Anxiety Inventories. Behav Res Ther 33: 335–343. - PubMed
    1. Lovibond SH, Lovibond PF (1995) Manual for the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale. Sydney: Psychology Foundation.

Publication types