State Anhedonia in Young Healthy Adults: Psychometric Properties of the German Dimensional Anhedonia Rating Scale (DARS) and Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Healthy reward processing is a complex interplay of several components. Recent self-report measures of anhedonia, the decrease or loss of hedonic capacity, take this complexity into account. The Dimensional Anhedonia Rating Scale (DARS) measures interest, motivation, effort and consummatory pleasure across four domains: hobbies, food/drink, social activities and sensory experiences. In the present cross-sectional survey study, we validated the German version of the DARS in a sample of 557 young healthy adults. Factor structure as well as convergent and divergent validity were assessed. As a secondary aim, we examined the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on state anhedonia and depression severity. Our results suggest good convergent and divergent validity and high internal consistency of the German DARS. The original differentiation of four factors mapping onto the four domains was confirmed and measurement invariance before and during the COVID-19 pandemic was established. We conclude that the DARS is a valid instrument to comprehensively assess state anhedonia in healthy German samples. Future studies should further assess the utility of the German DARS in clinical contexts. In line with many previous studies, participants during the pandemic reported significantly higher levels of depressive symptoms compared to participants in the months before. We found no indication that the COVID-19 pandemic affected state hedonic capacity.

Psychometric properties of the Dimensional Anhedonia Rating Scale in Chinese typical, subthreshold, and clinically depressed adolescents

“…For construct validity, the CFA indicated a good fit to the four‐factor structure model in typical Chinese adolescents and individuals with MDD and SD. In line with our findings, previous studies have also reported that the DARS has a robust four‐factor structure in adults with a different cultural background, such as Canadian, Spanish, German, and Chinese settings (Arrua‐Duarte et al, 2019; Jia et al, 2020;Rizvi et al, 2015; Wellan et al, 2021). This suggests that the four‐factor structure of the DARS is invariable and universal across different ages and cultural backgrounds.…”

“…Moreover, the DARS demonstrates good divergent validity, as its correlations with the BIS scores were small to none. The BIS scale has been linked to dysfunctional impulsive‐related behaviors, which is completely different from the construct of anhedonia (Rizvi et al, 2015; Wellan et al, 2021).…”

“…By asking participants to recall or imagine favorite scenes related to each domain instead of presenting fixed scenarios, the DARS can avoid cultural‐, sex‐, and age‐related biases. The DARS has been found to have good reliability and validity in Canadian, Spanish, German, and Chinese adult samples (Arrua‐Duarte et al, 2019; Jia et al, 2020; Rizvi et al, 2015; Wellan et al, 2021). Rizvi and colleagues validated the DARS in a community and depressed sample, which revealed a four‐factor model including hobbies, food/drink, social activities, and sensory experience (Rizvi et al, 2015).…”

The negative effects of the pandemic on human behavior; alienation and social anhedonia: the example of sport sciences students

“…When the studies are examined in detail, it is seen that this process is often associated with two different concepts separately. These concepts are the concept of "alienation", which is one of the research areas of social psychology, and "social anhedonia", which is a neuropsychological concept [11][12][13][14].…”

Kognitive Neurowissenschaft des Positiven

“…Allerdings zeigen die Studien, dass die einzelnen PVS-Subkonstrukte im subjektiven Selbstbericht durch den Fragebogen nicht differenzierbar waren, in Übereinstimmung mit anderen Fragebogenstudien, etwa im Bereich der Anhedonie, die ebenfalls nur Belohnungstypen unterscheiden konnten (z. B. bei der DARS [ 31 , 44 ]). Was bedeutet das?…”