The German Version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10): Evaluation of Dimensionality, Validity, and Measurement Invariance With Exploratory and Confirmatory Bifactor Modeling

Abstract

The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) is a popular instrument for measuring the degree to which individuals appraise situations in their lives as excessively uncontrollable and overloaded. Despite its widespread use (e.g., for evaluating intervention effects in stress management studies), there is still no agreement on its factor structure. Hence, the aim of the present study was to examine the dimensionality, measurement invariance (i.e., across gender, samples, and time), reliability, and validity of the PSS. Data from 11,939 German adults (73% women) were used to establish an exploratory bifactor model for the PSS with one general and two specific factors and to cross-validate this model in a confirmatory bifactor model. The model displayed strong measurement invariance across gender and was replicated in Study 2 in data derived from six randomized controlled trials investigating a web-based stress management training. In Study 2 (overall N = 1,862), we found strong temporal invariance. Also, our analyses of concurrent and predictive validity showed associations with depressive symptoms, anxiety, and insomnia severity for the three latent PSS factors. These results show the implications of the bifactor structure of the PSS that might be of consequence in empirical research.

Validation of the HADS and PSS‐10 and a cross‐sectional study of psychological status in patients with recurrent aphthous stomatitis

“…Results from the factor analysis demonstrated that a bi-factor model, with all items loading onto general factor with two group factors, provides the best fit to the HADS and PSS-10 data of patients with RAS than the originally proposed model. These findings were consistent with recent validation studies of both scales in various medical diagnoses, 19,20 Several studies have found that patients with RAS had higher level of anxiety, 21,22 depression, 23 distress, 24 and psychological stress 25 when compared to healthy individuals, while some studies did not find the difference between two groups. 4,26 The prevalence of anxiety symptoms in the present RAS cohort was higher than that reported in a previous study of Croatian patients (42.5% vs 24.47%), whereas the figures for depressive symptoms were much lower (18.3% vs 47.06%).…”

“…Results from the factor analysis demonstrated that a bi‐factor model, with all items loading onto general factor with two group factors, provides the best fit to the HADS and PSS‐10 data of patients with RAS than the originally proposed model. These findings were consistent with recent validation studies of both scales in various medical diagnoses, and demonstrated evidence of structural validity of both measures in a sample of RAS.…”

Assessing repetitive negative thinking in daily life: Development of an ecological momentary assessment paradigm

“…Higher scores reflect a higher level of perceived stress, as the items are rated from 0 ("never") to 4 ("very often"), resulting in a maximum score of 40. The 10-item version of the PSS shows a good reliability of α = .78 to.91 [37] and good concurrent validity [38]. In the current study, internal consistency was α = .84.…”

Cognitive Reappraisal and Self-Compassion as Emotion Regulation Strategies for Parents during COVID-19: An Online Randomized Controlled Trial

“…For each time point, an adapted introduction was used, which asked about perceived stress since the beginning of the pandemic restrictions or since the last measurement. Recent research on construct validity of the scale confirmed a two-factor model (perceived helplessness [PH], perceived self-efficacy [PSE]) alongside a unidimensional model by reversing the PSE items and summing up all items to a global score (Cohen et al, 1983;Reis et al, 2019;Schneider et al, 2020). For the global score, robust positive associations with depressive symptoms, anxiety, insomnia severity and fatigue, as well as negative associations with life satisfaction have been demonstrated (Klein et al, 2016;Reis et al, 2019).…”