Validity and reliability of a depression, anxiety and stress scale in Cuban dental students during the COVID-19

Introduction: An indisputable consequence has to do with the psychological impact of the COVID-19 on health professionals and students. In Cuba, these psychological manifestations have scarcely been investigated, and there are no reports in the dental undergraduate program. Objective: To analyze the evidences of validity and reliability of a depression, anxiety and stress scale in Cuban dental students in the context of COVID-19. Methods: An instrumental and cross-sectional study was carried out, which included students of all years and Cuban universities. A documentary measurement instrument was validated, using its main psychometric evidence. Convergent validity was analyzed and reliability was estimated using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Results: 301 students were included, of which 74.09 % were women and whose ages ranged from 17 to 30 years. The asymmetry and kurtosis values of all items were ade-quate. The confirmatory factorial analysis showed that the factorial structure of 21 items distributed in 3 factors is satisfactory. The goodness of fit indices was equally sa-tisfactory. The scale factors are directly and significantly related with the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-2 (p<0.01) and the Patient Health Questionnaire-2 (p<0.01); the scale shows evidences of convergent validity. With Cronbach’s α coefficient, the scale scores were estimated to be reliable. Conclusions: The depression, anxiety and stress scale (DASS-21) in Cuban dental students in the context of CO-VID-19 turned out to be valid and reliable, in addition to allowing the evaluation of the dimensions of these three factors in this sector of the society.