The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) was designed to efficiently measure the core symptoms of anxiety and depression and has demonstrated positive psychometric properties in adult samples of anxiety and depression patients and student samples. Despite these findings, the psychometric properties of the DASS remain untested in older adults, for whom the identification of efficient measures of these constructs is especially important.To determine the psychometric properties of the DASS 21-item version in older adults, we analyzed data from 222 medical patients seeking treatment to manage worry. Consistent with younger samples, a three-factor structure best fit the data. Results also indicated good internal consistency, excellent convergent validity, and good discriminative validity, especially for the depression scale. Receiver operating curve analyses indicated that the DASS-21 predicted the diagnostic presence of generalized anxiety disorder and depression as well as other commonly used measures.These data suggest that the DASS may be used with older adults in lieu of multiple scales designed to measure similar constructs, thereby reducing participant burden and facilitating assessment in settings with limited assessment resources. Publisher's Disclaimer: This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final citable form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. NIH Public Access Psychometric Properties of the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale-21 in Older Primary Care PatientsLovibond and Lovibond (1995a) developed a single measure to assess the core symptoms of depression and anxiety while maximizing discriminant validity between these constructs. Using an empirically driven iterative process, they identified a third factor, which they labeled stress. Their research resulted in the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS), which consists of 42 items comprising three scales of 14 items. Items refer to the past week; and scores range from 0, "Did not apply to me at all," to 4, "Applied to me very much, or most of the time." The Depression scale measures hopelessness, low self-esteem, and low positive affect. The Anxiety scale assesses autonomic arousal, physiological hyperarousal, and the subjective feeling of fear. The Stress scale items measure tension, agitation, and negative affect. Brown, et al., 1997;Clara et al., 2001), , and Depression -Stress (.57 -.79). Older AdultsDespite encouraging psychometric data with the DASS in younger adults, the measure remains untested in older adults. Given the high prevalence of anxiety, depression, and comorbid anxiety-depression in older adults and the need for briefer instruments that efficiently ev...

Until recently, little attention has been paid to anxiety symptoms in dementia. However, anxiety is common in this population, and associated with poor outcome and quality of life. The current review examines the existing literature around three major themes: the definition of anxiety in dementia, the properties of available instruments for assessment, and the clinical characteristics of anxiety in this population. Defining anxiety in individuals with dementia is complicated by the overlap between symptoms of anxiety, depression and dementia, and by the influence of the source of information. Several instruments are available to assess anxiety in this population, including general neuropsychiatric instruments and two scales designed specifically for this purpose. The reliability of these instruments is acceptable, but their validity has not been sufficiently examined, and they may discriminate poorly between anxiety and depression. Anxiety may be higher in vascular dementia than in Alzheimer's Disease, and it decreases in the severe stages of dementia. It is associated with poor quality of life and behavioral disturbances, even after controlling for depression. Little is known, however, about its social and environmental correlates. Limitations of the existing literature and key directions for future research are discussed.