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Dimensional Apathy Scale (DAS)
Dimensional Apathy Scale (DAS)
| Availability |
Please visit this website for more information about the instrument: Dimensional Apathy Scale
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| Classification |
Supplemental - Highly Recommended: Parkinson's Disease (PD)
Recommendations for use: Studies requiring a self-reported measure of apathy and/or a dimensional assessment of apathy.
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| Short Description of Instrument |
The Dimensional Apathy Scale (DAS) is a 24 item self-report scale that measures apathy over the last month in three subscales: executive (lack of motivation for organization, planning, or attention), emotional (lack of emotional motivation, indifference or emotional neutrality), and initiation (lack of motivation for self-generation of thought and or/actions). Based on Levy and Dubois's model of apathy subtypes in PD (Levy et al., 2006).
A caregiver/informant version is also available.
A brief version (b-DAS) is also available.
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| Comments/Special Instructions |
If administering the self-report version without concurrent administration of the caregiver version, researchers should be aware that patients may lack self-awareness of apathy.
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| Scoring and Psychometric Properties |
Scoring: Total score ranges from 0 to 72 and higher scores indicate greater apathy.
A total score of >28.5 is proposed as a cut-off score for clinically significant apathy in PD (Santangelo et al., 2017).
Subscale scores range from 0 to 24 and higher scores indicate greater apathy.
Proposed cut-off scores for subscales are 9.5 on executive, 10.5 on emotional, and 13.5 on initiation subscales in PD (Santangelo et al, 2017).
Psychometric Properties: In PD, there is good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.87),good convergent validity to the apathy evaluation scale (AES)-self-rated version (r=0.539,p<0.01), and good discrimination from UPDRS motor scores (r=0.024) as well as the MMSE (-0.070), but not from BDI-II (r= 0.501) or PAS (r= 0.288) (Santangelo et al., 2017).
Another smaller study (Radakovic et al., 2018) in 34 patients with PD showed good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.84) and good convergent validity to the apathy evaluation scale (AES)-self-rated version (r=0.80,p<0.001). GDS-15 correlated with DAS total (r=0.61, p<0.01) and DAS executive subscale (r=0.54, p<0.05), but not the emotional and initiation subscales.
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| Rationale/Justification |
Strengths: Multidimensional assessment of apathy independent of motor symptom disability. Takes about 5 minutes to complete.
Weaknesses: Proposed cut-off Executive subscale score should be used with caution (Santangelo et al, 2017). May overlap with depression measures.
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| References |
Key Reference:
Radakovic R, Abrahams S. Developing a new apathy measurement scale: Dimensional Apathy Scale. Psychiatry Res. 2014 Nov 30;219(3):658-63.
Additional References:
Levy R, Dubois B. Apathy and the functional anatomy of the prefrontal cortex-basal ganglia circuits. Cereb Cortex. 2006 Jul;16(7):916-28.
Radakovic R, Davenport R, Starr JM, Abrahams S. Apathy dimensions in Parkinson's disease. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2018 Jan;33(1):151-158.
Santangelo G, D'Iorio A, Piscopo F, Cuoco S, Longo K, Amboni M, Baiano C, Tafuri D, Pellecchia MT, Barone P, Vitale C. Assessment of apathy minimising the effect of motor dysfunctions in Parkinson's disease: a validation study of the dimensional apathy scale. Qual Life Res. 2017 Sep;26(9):2533-2540.
Document last updated August 2022
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