Please cite this article as: Ali, Amira Mohammed; Ahmed, Anwar; Sharaf, Amira;
Kawakami, Norito; Abdeldayem, Samia M.; Green, Joseph. Analysis of the Arabic version
of The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21: cumulative scaling and discriminant validity
testing. Asian Journal of Psychiatry https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajp.2017.07.018
The Arabic Version of The Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21: cumulative scaling
and discriminant-validation testing
Abstract
Objective: This study aimed to examine the validity of the Arabic version of the Depression
Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) in 149 illicit drug users.
Methods: We calculated α coefficient, inter-tem and item-total correlations, coefficients of
reproducibility and scalability (CR and CS), item difficulty and discrimination indices.
Results: The DASS-21 had an acceptable reliability; but values of the CR and the CS were
less than acceptable. Items varied in difficulty and discrimination; some items are
candidates for elimination.
Conclusion: The DASS-21 is a probabilistic and not a deterministic measure of distress; it
has problematic items and needs further investigations.
Keywords: DASS-21; discriminant validity, drug users; Guttman scalogram.