The DASS-21 measures three related states over the past week in just 21 items. This page gives the structure, the item-to-subscale map, the score-doubling rule and severity bands, and shows how to run it on participant phones.
Free sandbox · No credit card · 21 CFR Part 11 aligned
DASS-21 · Baseline
Subject 002-0014 · Demo study · over the past week
Statement 1 (stress subscale)
DASS-21 at a glance
Licensing
Free to useRights holder: Lovibond and Lovibond (1995); Psychology Foundation of AustraliaThe UNSW DASS site states that the DASS is public domain and permission is not needed. Individual translations are listed with their own translator as the contact, so confirm the terms of the version you use. The full manual is sold separately.
In Capture: No licence is needed. Enter the published wording and use official translations.
UNSW DASS siteInstrument names belong to their rights holders, and Capture is not affiliated with or endorsed by them. Terms change, so confirm them with the rights holder before your study starts. This is general information, not legal advice.
The instrument
The DASS treats depression, anxiety and stress as dimensions that everyone experiences to some degree, rather than as categories. The depression subscale centres on low mood, hopelessness and loss of interest. Anxiety covers autonomic arousal, situational anxiety and the subjective feeling of fear. Stress reflects tension, irritability and difficulty relaxing. Having all three in one 21-item form is why it is popular in behavioural, workplace, student and general-population studies, and in trials of psychological or lifestyle interventions where distress is a secondary outcome.
If you only need depression or anxiety, the PHQ-9 and GAD-7 are shorter and have established clinical thresholds. In medically ill populations, where somatic symptoms confound, the HADS was designed for the purpose, though it is licensed. The DASS-21 is a good fit when the stress dimension matters or when the population literature in your field uses it, for example in studies run under behavioral health protocols.
Add the seven items of each subscale, then multiply by 2. The result is a 0 to 42 score per subscale that lines up with the severity ranges published for the full DASS-42. Which item belongs to which subscale is fixed (see the map below) and should be kept in the variable names so the analysis program can sum the right columns. These sums are not among Capture's built-in calculated fields, so they are derived in analysis from the exported item codes.
UNSW's guidance says interpretation should be done by people trained in psychological science. Treat the severity labels as descriptive ranges, not diagnoses, and say in the protocol what a high score triggers, if anything.
Week 8 stress score (sum x 2)
22 / 42
Item map
Item numbers follow the standard DASS-21 order. Each item is rated 0 (did not apply to me at all) to 3 (applied to me very much, or most of the time).
| Subscale | Items | Sum x 2 range |
|---|---|---|
| Depression | 3, 5, 10, 13, 16, 17, 21 | 0 to 42 |
| Anxiety | 2, 4, 7, 9, 15, 19, 20 | 0 to 42 |
| Stress | 1, 6, 8, 11, 12, 14, 18 | 0 to 42 |
Take the item wording from the official DASS-21 on the UNSW site. Item text is not reproduced on this page.
Severity ranges
| Label | Depression | Anxiety | Stress |
|---|---|---|---|
| Normal | 0 to 9 | 0 to 7 | 0 to 14 |
| Mild | 10 to 13 | 8 to 9 | 15 to 18 |
| Moderate | 14 to 20 | 10 to 14 | 19 to 25 |
| Severe | 21 to 27 | 15 to 19 | 26 to 33 |
| Extremely severe | 28 or more | 20 or more | 34 or more |
Ranges as published with the DASS. Confirm against the manual or the UNSW site before putting them in a statistical analysis plan.
Run it as ePRO
The four answers are long sentences, so phone layout matters. Capture wraps long answer labels instead of truncating them, and every answer is stored as its code (0 to 3) with the label alongside, so the data dictionary documents the coding.
How much pain do you feel right now?
How much pain do you feel right now?
NoneMildModerateSevereLicensing
UNSW describes the DASS as public domain. If your protocol or ethics committee still wants a record, the study team can switch on "Licence required" on a participant questionnaire and record a number, holder and expiry; until it is entered, staff see a "copyright approval pending" watermark and nothing is blocked. Capture does not verify licences or supply the instrument wording.
Copyright & licence
Approval pendingLicence number
Not recorded
Expiry date
Not recorded
Watermark shown to staff only. Participants never see it.
Copy the structure into a sandbox study, add the 21 items and send yourself the participant link.
Data quality
Most DASS-21 problems are analysis mistakes rather than collection mistakes, and they are avoidable at build time.
Comparing an undoubled DASS-21 sum with DASS-42 severity ranges understates distress by half. Put the doubling rule in the analysis plan and in the data dictionary notes.
Name variables with the subscale prefix (for example D03, A02, S01) so a mis-ordered item list cannot silently swap subscales.
UNSW hosts many translations, each with its own translator as the contact. Confirm that the specific version can be reproduced in your study and record where it came from.
The form asks about the past week. Schedule it no more often than weekly, with a completion window so late entries do not describe a different week.
The UNSW DASS site states the DASS is public domain and that permission is not needed. Individual translations may have their own contacts, so confirm the version you use.
Sum the seven items of each subscale (depression, anxiety, stress) and multiply by 2, giving 0 to 42 per subscale. Each item is rated 0 to 3 over the past week.
The DASS-21 is the short form of the 42-item DASS. Doubling puts its scores on the same scale as the DASS-42 so the published severity ranges apply.
No. Items are stored as coded values and exported with a data dictionary. Subscale totals are derived in analysis, because Capture's calculated fields are a fixed set of clinical derivations such as BMI and eGFR.
No. It is a dimensional measure of symptom severity over the past week, not a diagnostic instrument.
Yes. It runs in the phone browser from a secure link sent by email or SMS, with no app to install.
No. It gives structure, the item-to-subscale map and scoring. Take the item wording from the official DASS-21 on the UNSW site.
Keep exploring
HADS eCRF template
Anxiety and depression in medical patients.
PHQ-9 eCRF template
Depression severity, 0 to 27.
GAD-7 eCRF template
Anxiety severity, 0 to 21.
WHO-5 eCRF template
Short wellbeing index.
EDC for behavioral health studies
Digital and behavioural interventions.
Mood tracker template
A daily diary between visits.
Build the three subscales, schedule weekly or monthly and test it on your phone. Free sandbox, no credit card.