COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF EMOTIONAL DISTRESS AMONG SCHOOL GOING ADOLESCENT GIRLS USING DEPRESSION, ANXIETY AND STRESS 21 (DASS-21) AND HOSPITAL BASED ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION (HADS) SCALES

Background: Adolescent girls are particularly vulnerable to depression, anxiety, and stress because of rapid biological, psychological, and social changes. Screening for psychosocial-wellbeing and understanding the interrelationship between screening results is a matter of research interest. Present study aims to compare the performance of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) and assessing socio-demographic predictors of depression and anxiety among school-going adolescent girls. Methods: A school-based cross-sectional analytical study was conducted during January–June 2023 among 168 unmarried school going adolescent girls aged 13–19 years using multistage random sampling. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire along with the validated DASS-21 and HADS instruments. Results: According to DASS-21, 49.4% of participants had depression, 58.9% had anxiety. HADS identified 72.0% of participants with borderline or abnormal depression and 74.4% with borderline or abnormal anxiety. A significant association was observed between DASS-21 and HADS depression classifications (χ² = 13.544, p = 0.035), indicating good agreement between the two screening tools. DASS-21 depression, anxiety, and stress scores differed significantly across age groups (P< 0.001), whereas HADS depression scores did not show significant age-related variation (P< 0.001). Conclusion: Both DASS-21 and HADS effectively identified substantial levels of depression and anxiety among adolescent girls and demonstrated significant agreement. DASS-21 provided the additional advantage of assessing stress and appeared more sensitive to age-related variations in emotional distress. Incorporating routine mental health screening using these validated instruments together with psycho-social interventions may be effective for identifying adolescents at risk of developing depression and anxiety.