Peer-Reviewed Publication
J Affect Disord2026;406121693.August 1, 2026Journal Article
Depression and anxiety symptoms in adolescents across 30 countries: Cross-national measurement invariance and relationships with subjective well-being.
Veljko Jovanović1, Sabirah Adams2, Rebeca Aritio-Solana3, Christ Billy Aryanto4, Andreja Avsec5, Ali Bakhshi6, Martina Baldassarre7, Michael Bender8, Sophie Berjot9, Sonia Betancourth Zambrano10, Andreja Brajša-Žganec11, Yunier Broche-Pérez12, Carmen Buzea13, Rosario Cabello14, Rosalinda Cassibba7, Judith Cavazos-Arroyo15, Fatemeh Daemi16, Diego D Díaz-Guerra17, Marija Džida11, Mona Eidelsburger18, Pablo Fernández-Berrocal19, Evelyn Fernández-Castillo17, Eduardo Fonseca-Pedrero3, Tomasz Frackowiak20, Teresa Freire21, Vesna Gavrilov-Jerković22, Biljana Gjoneska23, Jesús Guerrero-Alcedo24, Jessie Hillekens25, Stefan Höfer26, Md Jamil Hossain27, Naved Iqbal28, Szilvia Jámbori29, Mohsen Joshanloo30, Ljiljana Kaliterna Lipovčan11, Tina Kavčič31, Marta Kowal32, Marija Krstevska Taseva33, Sok Ian Kuan34, Milica Lazić22, Tareq Mahmud27, Denisse Manrique-Millones24, Michal Misiak35, Pasquale Musso7, Vojana Obradović22, Javier Ortuño-Sierra3, Ioana Orzea36, Ahmet Özaslan37, Joonha Park38, Marija Pašić39, Rasa Pilkauskaitė Valickienė40, Rogelio Puente-Díaz41, Lizbeth Puerta-Sierra41, Gordana Ristevska Dimitrovska42, S Craig Roberts43, Puji Tania Ronauli4, Shazly Savahl2, Danielius Serapinas44, Agnieszka Sorokowska20, Piotr Sorokowski20, Dijana Sulejmanović45, Mst Sadia Sultana46, Erzsébet Szél29, Dušana Šakan47, Henri Tilga48, Aleksandar Tomašević49, Kwok Kit Tong34, Wenceslao Unanue50, Jesús Unanue51, Marieke van Egmond52, Murat Yıldırım53, Sze Man Yuen54, Gaja Zager Kocjan5, Laura Zamarian55, Marija Zotović-Kostić22
1Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia. Electronic address: veljko.jovanovic@ff.uns.ac.rs.
2University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.
3Educational Sciences Department, University of La Rioja, Logroño, Spain.
4Faculty of Psychology, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia.
5Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
6State Welfare Organization of Iran, Tehran, Iran.
7Department of Education Sciences, Psychology, Communication, University of Bari Aldo Moro, Bari, Italy.
8Department of Social Psychology, Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands.
9Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne, C2S, Reims, France.
10Teacher University of Nariño, Pasto, Nariño, Colombia.
11Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Zagreb, Croatia.
12Prisma Behavioral Center, West Palm Beach, FL, USA.
13Department of Social Sciences and Communication, Faculty of Sociology and Communication, Transilvania University of Brasov, Brasov, Romania.
14Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain.
15Centro Interdisciplinario de Posgrados, Universidad Popular Autónoma del Estado de Puebla, Puebla, Mexico.
16Department of Psychology, CTC, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran.
17Psychology Department, Universidad Central Marta Abreu de Las Villas, Villa Clara, Cuba.
18Department of Psychology, Leopold Franzens University, Innsbruck, Austria.
19Department of Basic Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain.
20Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland.
21School of Psychology, University of Minho, Braga, Portugal.
22Department of Psychology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Novi Sad, Novi Sad, Serbia.
23Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Skopje, North Macedonia.
24Carrera de Psicología, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Científica del Sur, Lima, Peru.
25Department of Developmental Psychology, Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands.
26Department of Psychiatry II, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
27Department of Public Health and Informatics, Jahangirnagar University, Savar, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
28Department of Psychology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India.
29Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary.
30Department of Psychology, Keimyung University, Daegu, South Korea.
31Department of Psychology, Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia; Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
32IDN Being Human Lab - Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland.
33Association Center for Intercultural Dialogue, Kumanovo, North Macedonia.
34Department of Psychology, University of Macau, Macau, China.
35IDN Being Human Lab - Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland; School of Anthropology & Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
36National College Radu Negru, Fagaras, Romania.
37Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Department, Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey; Psychology Research Center, Khazar University, Baku, Azerbaijan.
38Graduate School of Education, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.
39Institute of Public Health of Montenegro, Podgorica, Montenegro.
40Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Human and Social Studies, Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania.
41School of Business and Economics, Universidad Anáhuac México, Huixquilucan, Mexico.
42Higher Medical School, University St. Kliment Ohridski Bitola, Bitola, North Macedonia.
43IDN Being Human Lab - Institute of Psychology, University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland; Division of Psychology, University of Stirling, Stirling, UK.
44Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Human and Social Studies, Mykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania; Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Kaunas, Lithuania.
45Islamic Pedagogic Faculty, Bihać, University of Bihać, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
46Department of Health, Society, and Behavior, UC Irvine Joe C. Wen School of Population and Public Health, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA.
47Department of Business Psychology, Faculty of Law and Business Studies dr Lazar Vrkatić, Union University Belgrade, Novi Sad, Serbia.
48Institute of Sport Sciences and Physiotherapy, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia.
49Institute of Physics Belgrade, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia.
50Business School, Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez, Santiago, Chile.
51Facultad de Economía y Negocios, Universidad Andres Bello, Santiago, Chile.
52Tranzo, Tilburg University, Tilburg, the Netherlands.
53Psychology Research Center, Khazar University, Baku, Azerbaijan; Department of Psychology, Ağrı İbrahim Çeçen University, Ağrı, Turkey.
54Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
55Department of Neurology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria.
Abstract
Cross-cultural empirical evidence on the validity of measures of depression and anxiety symptoms in adolescents is scarce and inconclusive. The present study investigated the cross-national measurement invariance and convergent validity evidence of the Depression and Anxiety scales of the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS-21). We sampled 16,802 adolescents (58.1% female) aged 14-19 years…
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