Centre for Policy on Ageing



The Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale — factor structure, reliability and validity with older adults
Author(s)	M Floyd, F Scogin, W F Chaplin
Journal title	Aging & Mental Health, vol 8, no 2, March 2004
Pages	pp 153-160
Source	http://www.tandfonline.com
Keywords	Cognitive processes ; Attitude ; Depression ; Evaluation.
Annotation	The Dysfunctional Attitudes Scale Form A (DAS-A), a self-report measure of depression-related attitudes, has been used in several studies of depression. The DAS-A has a two-factor structure that has been found consistently with college student samples and clinically depressed samples of middle age adults, but it has not been validated with older people. This study examined the factor structure with a sample of 100 depressed older people (mean age 68.19; average initial Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression [HRSD] score 6.72) who participated in a depression treatment study. Results indicated the factor structure established with younger adults was not replicated with older adults. Furthermore, the factor structure with older adults was uncertain: a single factor structure, two-factor structure and three-factor structure were essentially of equal validity. The uncertainty of the latent structure of the DAS-A suggests that it should be interpreted with caution whenever used with older people. (RH).
Accession Number	CPA-040618215 A
Classmark	DA: DP: ENR: 4C
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing

...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing.