Comparing the psychometric evidence of the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) between Spanish and Chinese primary schoolteachers: insights from classical test theory and rasch analysis

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Wang, X, Cao, C-H, Liao, X-L, Jiang, X-Y, Griffiths, MD ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-6524, Chen, I-H, Lin, C-Y and Malas, O, 2025. Comparing the psychometric evidence of the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) between Spanish and Chinese primary schoolteachers: insights from classical test theory and rasch analysis. BMC Psychology, 13: 450. ISSN 2050-7283

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-02728-7

Abstract

Background: Primary schoolteachers play a pivotal role in the education of children, highlighting the importance of addressing their psychological well-being and mental health. While the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) is a globally recognized instrument for evaluating mental health, its systematic validation among primary schoolteachers, particularly in a cross-national context, remains understudied. The present cross-cultural study evaluated the psychometric properties of DASS-21 among primary schoolteachers in Spain and China to compare the DASS-21 between teachers across Western and Eastern cultures.

Methods: The study sample comprised 1,350 Spanish and 2,580 Chinese primary schoolteachers. The DASS-21, alongside the Emotional Exhaustion Scale for Teachers, was used to evaluate its psychometric properties. The construct and concurrent validity of the DASS-21 were examined using Rasch analysis, Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), and Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Additionally, measurement invariance was tested across two national teacher cohorts.

Results: Rasch analysis confirmed the validity of most DASS-21 items among both the Spanish and Chinese teachers, with only the same item from the Anxiety subscale showing inadequate fit in both countries. CFA across both countries initially favored a bifactor model, which was subsequently excluded due to problematic factor loadings. Instead, a single-factor model provided the best fit for Chinese teachers, while a correlated three-factor model was optimal for Spanish teachers. SEM demonstrated the DASS-21’s concurrent validity with emotional exhaustion, with consistent findings across both samples. After excluding Differential Item Functioning (DIF) items, strict measurement invariance between Spanish and Chinese teachers was achieved, as verified by multi-group CFA.

Conclusion: The DASS-21 exhibits commendable psychometric properties, rendering it a suitable instrument for evaluating the mental illness of primary schoolteachers in both Spain and China.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	BMC Psychology
Creators:	Wang, X., Cao, C.-H., Liao, X.-L., Jiang, X.-Y., Griffiths, M.D., Chen, I.-H., Lin, C.-Y. and Malas, O.
Publisher:	Springer
Date:	29 April 2025
Volume:	13
ISSN:	2050-7283
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1186/s40359-025-02728-7 DOI 2433435 Other
Rights:	© the author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	29 Apr 2025 15:46
Last Modified:	29 Apr 2025 15:46
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53493