Measuring stress in clinical and nonclinical subjects using a German adaptation of the Perceived Stress Scale

Eva Elisa Schneider, Sandra Schönfelder, Mila Domke-Wolf, Michèle Wessa, Eva Elisa Schneider, Sandra Schönfelder, Mila Domke-Wolf, Michèle Wessa

Abstract

Background/Objective: Stress is perceived differently across individuals, which might be particularly true for nonclinical and clinical subjects. For this reason, we tested a German adaption of the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) for model fit and measurement invariance in a big nonclinical and clinical sample. Method: We (1) conducted multiple confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in 1,248 nonclinical subjects and 575 outpatients, (2) measurement invariance with multigroup CFA, (3) assessed correlations with relevant constructs and (4) calculated internal consistencies for overall stress and the subscales Helplessness and Self-efficacy. Results: In both samples, CFA revealed a robust two-factorial structure with an excellent model fit. Group comparisons revealed strict measurement invariance. Correlations with associated measures support validity. Internal consistencies were good to very good. Conclusions: We show highly satisfactory psychometric properties of the German PSS-10 for nonclinical and clinical individuals. Measurement invariance analyses demonstrated that varying stress levels of people with a different mental health status are due to true interindividual differences.

Keywords: Clinical subjects; Factor analyses; Instrumental study.; Invariance; Perceived Stress Scale.

© 2020 Published by Elsevier España, S.L.U. on behalf of Asociación Española de Psicología Conductual.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Final PSS model retrieved from CFA (standardized solution) in nonclinical and clinical subjects; statistical indices from nonclinical subjects are shown in brackets. Factor loadings are shown above the arrows, communalities are shown next to the Items. Items 4, 5, 7 and 8 are reverse-scored (R). Items 2 and 8R served as marker variables. Residuals of items 1/3 and items 1/9 were freed to correlate.

References

    1. Amirkhan J.H. Stress overload: A new approach to the assessment of stress. American Journal of Community Psychology. 2012;49:55–71. doi: 10.1007/s10464-011-9438-x.
    1. Arbuckle J.L., Wothke W. Smallwaters Corporation; Chicago: 1999. AMOS 4.0 Users Guide.
    1. Bech P., Olsen L.R., Kjoller M., Rasmussen N.K. Measuring well-being rather than the absence of distress symptoms: A comparison of the SF-36 Mental Health subscale and the WHO-Five Well-Being Scale. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research. 2003;12:85–91. doi: 10.1002/mpr.145.
    1. Campbell J., Ehlert U. Acute psychosocial stress: Does the emotional stress response correspond with physiological responses? Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2012;37:1111–1134. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.12.010.
    1. Cheung G.W., Rensvold R.B. Evaluating Goodness-of-Fit Indexes for Testing Measurement Invariance. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal. 2002;9:233–255. doi: 10.1207/S15328007SEM0902_5.
    1. Cleland C., Kearns A., Tannahill C., Ellaway A. The impact of life events on adult physical and mental health and well-being: Longitudinal analysis using the GoWell health and well-being survey. BMC Research Notes. 2016;9:470. doi: 10.1186/s13104-016-2278-x.
    1. Cohen J. A power primer. Psychological Bulletin. 1992;112:155–159. doi: 10.1037//0033-2909.112.1.155.
    1. Cohen S., Kamarck T., Mermelstein R. A Global Measure of Perceived Stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior. 1983;24:385–396. doi: 10.2307/2136404.
    1. Cohen S., Murphy M.L.M., Prather A.A. Ten Surprising Facts About Stressful Life Events and Disease Risk. Annual Review of Psychology. 2019;70:577–597. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-102857.
    1. Cole S.R. Assessment of differential item functioning in the Perceived Stress Scale-10. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 1999;53:319–320.
    1. Conway C.C., Rutter L.A., Brown T.A. Chronic environmental stress and the temporal course of depression and panic disorder: A trait-state-occasion modeling approach. Journal of. Abnormal Psychology. 2016;125:53–63. doi: 10.1037/abn0000122.
    1. Cusack S.E., Coleman J.A., Rappaport L.M., Sheerin C. Moderation of improvement in self-efficacy following group psychotherapy for PTSD. Psychological Services. 2018;16:657–663. doi: 10.1037/ser0000260.
    1. Denovan A., Dagnall N., Dhingra K., Grogan S. Evaluating the Perceived Stress Scale among UK university students: Implications for stress measurement and management. Studies in Higher Education. 2019;44:120–133. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2017.1340445.
    1. Dikmen-Yildiz P., Ayers S., Phillips L. Longitudinal trajectories of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after birth and associated risk factors. Journal of affective disorders. 2018;229:377–385. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2017.12.074.
    1. Francisco C., Arce C., Vílchez M.D.P., Vales Á. Antecedents and consequences of burnout in athletes: Perceived stress and depression. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology. 2016;16:239–246. doi: 10.1016/j.ijchp.2016.04.001.
    1. Franke G.H. Beltz Test GmbH; Göttingen, Germany: 2000. BSI brief symptom inventory von L. R. Derogatis (Kurzform der SCL-90-R) deutsche Version; Manual.
    1. Galatzer-Levy I.R., Huang S.H., Bonanno G.A. Trajectories of resilience and dysfunction following potential trauma: A review and statistical evaluation. Clinical psychology review. 2018;63:41–55. doi: 10.1016/j.cpr.2018.05.008.
    1. Gorlin E.I., Werntz A.J., Fua K.C., Lambert A.E., Namaky N., Teachman B.A. Remembering or knowing how we felt: Depression and anxiety symptoms predict retrieval processes during emotional self-report. Emotion. 2019;19:465–479. doi: 10.1037/emo0000436.
    1. Guerra C., Cumsille P., Martínez M.L. Post-traumatic stress symptoms in adolescents exposed to an earthquake: Association with self-efficacy, perceived magnitude, and fear. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology. 2014;14:202–207. doi: 10.1016/j.ijchp.2014.05.001.
    1. Guillot-Valdés M., Guillén-Riquelme A., Buela-Casal G. Reliability and validity of the Basic Depression Questionnaire. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology. 2019;19:243–250. doi: 10.1016/j.ijchp.2019.07.002.
    1. Hu L.-t., Bentler P.M. Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal. 1999;6:1–55. doi: 10.1080/10705519909540118.
    1. Jacobi F., Höfler M., Strehle J., Mack S., Gerschler A., Scholl L., Mack S., Gerschler A., Scholl L., Busch M., Hapke U., Maske U., Seiffert I., Gaebel W., Maier W., Wagner M., Wittchen H.-U. Twelve-months prevalence of mental disorders in the German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Adults - Mental Health Module (DEGS1-MH): A methodological addendum and correction. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research. 2015;24:305–313. doi: 10.1002/mpr.1479.
    1. Keeley J.W., Reed G.M., Roberts M.C., Evans S.C., Robles R., Matsumoto C., Brewin C., Cloitre M., Perkonigg A., Rousseau C., Gureje O., Lovell A., Sharan P., Maercker A. Disorders specifically associated with stress: A case-controlled field study for ICD-11 mental and behavioural disorders. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology. 2016;16:109–127. doi: 10.1016/j.ijchp.2015.09.002.
    1. Khalili R., Sirati Nir M., Ebadi A., Tavallai A., Habibi M. Validity and reliability of the Cohen 10-item Perceived Stress Scale in patients with chronic headache: Persian version. Asian Journal of Psychiatry. 2017;26:136–140. doi: 10.1016/j.ajp.2017.01.010.
    1. Klein E.M., Brähler E., Dreier M., Reinecke L., Müller K.W., Schmutzer G., Wölfling K., Beutel M.E. The German version of the Perceived Stress Scale - psychometric characteristics in a representative German community sample. BMC Psychiatry. 2016;16:159. doi: 10.1186/s12888-016-0875-9.
    1. Lavoie J.A.A., Douglas K.S. The Perceived Stress Scale: Evaluating Configural, Metric and Scalar Invariance across Mental Health Status and Gender. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment. 2012;34:48–57. doi: 10.1007/s10862-011-9266-1.
    1. Lazarus R.S., Folkman S. Springer; New York, NY: 1984. Stress, appraisal, and coping.
    1. Leon-Quismondo L., Lahera G. Relationship between cognitions and perceived self-efficacy with the severity of panic disorder with agoraphobia. European Psychiatry. 2016;33:S324. doi: 10.1016/j.eurpsy.2016.01.1119.
    1. Marsh H.W., Hau K.T., Balla J.R., Grayson D. Is More Ever Too Much? The Number of Indicators per Factor in Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Multivariate Behavioral Research. 1998;33:181–220. doi: 10.1207/s15327906mbr3302_1.
    1. Nielsen M.G., Ørnbøl E., Vestergaard M., Bech P., Larsen F.B., Lasgaard M., Christensen K.S. The construct validity of the Perceived Stress Scale. Journal of Psychosomatic Research. 2016;84:22–30. doi: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2016.03.009.
    1. Petrowski K., Paul S., Albani C., Brähler E. Factor structure and psychometric properties of the trier inventory for chronic stress (TICS) in a representative German sample. BMC Medical Research Methodology. 2012;12:42. doi: 10.1186/1471-2288-12-42.
    1. Putnick D.L., Bornstein M.H. Measurement Invariance Conventions and Reporting: The State of the Art and Future Directions for Psychological Research. Developmental Review. 2016;41:71–90. doi: 10.1016/j.dr.2016.06.004.
    1. Reis D., Lehr D., Heber E., Ebert D.D. The German Version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10): Evaluation of Dimensionality, Validity, and Measurement Invariance With Exploratory and Confirmatory Bifactor Modeling. Assessment. 2017 doi: 10.1177/1073191117715731.
    1. Roohafza H., Ramezani M., Sadeghi M., Shahnam M., Zolfagari B., Sarafzadegan N. Development and validation of the stressful life event questionnaire. International Journal of Public Health. 2011;56:441–448. doi: 10.1007/s00038-011-0232-1.
    1. Schlotz W., Yim I.S., Zoccola P.M., Jansen L., Schulz P. The Perceived Stress Reactivity Scale: Measurement invariance, stability, and validity in three countries. Psychological Assessment. 2011;23:80–94. doi: 10.1037/a0021148.
    1. Schönfeld P., Brailovskaia J., Bieda A., Zhang X.C., Margraf J. The effects of daily stress on positive and negative mental health: Mediation through self-efficacy. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology. 2016;16:1–10. doi: 10.1016/j.ijchp.2015.08.005.
    1. Schroder K.E.E., Ollis C.L. The Coping Competence Questionnaire: A measure of resilience to helplessness and depression. Motivation and Emotion. 2013;37:286–302. doi: 10.1007/s11031-012-9311-8.
    1. Skorikov V.B., VanderVoort D.J. Relationships Between The Underlying Constructs Of The Beck Depression Inventory And The Center For Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Educational and Psychological Measurement. 2003;63:319–335. doi: 10.1177/0013164402251035.
    1. Taylor J.M. Psychometric analysis of the Ten-Item Perceived Stress Scale. Psychological Assessment. 2015;27:90–101. doi: 10.1037/a0038100.
    1. Vandenberg R.J., Lance C.E. A Review and Synthesis of the Measurement Invariance Literature: Suggestions, Practices, and Recommendations for Organizational Research. Organizational Research Methods. 2000;3:4–70. doi: 10.1177/109442810031002.
    1. Wersebe H., Lieb R., Meyer A.H., Hofer P., Gloster A.T. The link between stress, well-being, and psychological flexibility during an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy self-help intervention. International Journal of Clinical and Health Psychology. 2018;18:60–68. doi: 10.1016/j.ijchp.2017.09.002.
    1. Wessa M., Perlini C., Brambilla P. Neuropsychological underpinnings of the dynamics of bipolar disorder. Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences. 2015;24:479–483. doi: 10.1017/S2045796015000098.
    1. Wittchen H.-U., Wunderlich U., Gruschwitz S., Zaudig M. Hogrefe; Göttingen: 1997. Strukturiertes Klinisches Interview für DSM-IV. Achse II: Persönlichkeitsstörungen.
    1. Zahn R., Lythe K.E., Gethin J.A., Green S., Deakin J.F.W., Young A.H., Moll J. The role of self-blame and worthlessness in the psychopathology of major depressive disorder. Journal of Affective Disorders. 2015;186:337–341. doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2015.08.001.
    1. Zorn J.V., Schür R.R., Boks M.P., Kahn R.S., Joëls M., Vinkers C.H. Cortisol stress reactivity across psychiatric disorders: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2017;77:25–36. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2016.11.036.

Source: PubMed

Sponsorzy i współpracownicy

Warunki medyczne

Interwencje lekowe

3
Subskrybuj