Dysfunctional Attitude Scale (DAS) Author: Arlene Weissman The DAS is a 40-item instrument that that is designed to identify and measure cognitive distortions, articularly distortions that may relate to or cause deression! The items contained on the DAS are "ased on #ec$%s cognitive theray model and resent & ma'or value systems: Aroval, ove, Achievement, erfectionism, *ntitlement, +mniotence, and Autonom A utonomy y! Scoring: Any items that are missing, assign a ero! To To o"tain the overall score, simly add the score on all items (ranging from to &)! When no items are omitted, scores on the DAS range from 40 to ./0! oer scores reresent more more adative "eliefs and feer cognitive distortions! ractitioners can also e1amine other areas here resondents may "e emotionally vulnera"le or strong as indicated "y their resonses to other seci2c items! Treatment Treatment can then "e targeted to those areas! 3elia"ility: 3elia"ility: The DAS is reorted to have very good internal consistency, ith alhas ranging from !/4 to !.! The DAS also has e1cellent sta"ility, ith test-retest correlations over / ee$s of !/0 to !/4! 5alidity: alidity: 6as e1cellent concurrent validity, signi2cantly correlating ith several other measures of deression, including the #ec$ Deression 7nventory (#D7)! The DAS also signi2cantly distinguishes "eteen grous diagnosed as deressed or not deressed on
the #D7! The DAS as also found to "e sensitive to change folloing clinical intervention ith deressed outatients!
