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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Quantitative Psychology and Measurement
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1479701

Psychometric Comparison of two short Versions of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-4) in a Representative Sample of the German Population

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 University Medical Centre, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany
  • 2 Department of Psychology, Faculty of Humanities, University of Klagenfurt, Klagenfurt, Carinthia, Austria
  • 3 Integrated Research and Treatment Center, University Hospital Leipzig, Leipzig, Lower Saxony, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Perceived stress is a construct of crucial importance to health and well-being, necessitating the provision of economic, psychometrically sound instruments to assess it in routine clinical practice and large-scale survey studies. Two competing short versions of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), each consisting of four items, have been proposed. In the present study, we compare the two in a sample representative of the German general population (n = 2,527). Our analyses show that both versions are sufficiently reliable and valid, given the right measurement model. Specifically, the original PSS-4 by Cohen et al. suffers from response style effects, which we remedied using random intercept factor analysis. With the addition of the method factor, it is a highly reliable and valid scale.The PSS-2&2 by Schäfer et al. is more complex in its interpretation since it is split into two facets which cannot be summarized into a single score. Specifically, the Helplessness subscale correlates with related constructs very similarly to the original unifactorial model but its reliability is lackluster. In contrast, the Self-Efficacy subscale is reliable but diverges in terms of its correlational pattern. In sum, both versions can be recommended for research designs in need of a brief measure of stress and offer unique contributions.

    Keywords: stress, Measurement instrument, Psychometric Analysis, Screening instrument, factor analysis

    Received: 12 Aug 2024; Accepted: 12 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Schmalbach, Ernst, Braehler and Petrowski. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Bjarne Schmalbach, University Medical Centre, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.