Measuring stress in the mildly intellectually handicapped: The factorial structure of the subjective stress scale

A preliminary study of perceived stress in adults with intellectual disabilities according to self‐report and informant ratings

“…The Lifestress-Inf was derived from the Lifestress Inventory (Bramston, Fogarty & Cummins, 1999) which is a self-report stress scale comprised of a list of 30 life events which people with ID reported (in focus groups) to most often bother or upset them (for details on scale construction, see Bramston, Bostock and Tehan, 1993). The original Lifestress Inventory (self-report) has been shown to be reasonably reliable, valid and factorially stable (Bramston, Fogarty, & Cummins, 1997) and clinically useful in understanding the pressures experienced by young adults moving into community accommodation (Bramston & Cummins, 1998). For comparative purposes with the new Lifestress-Inf, the Lifestress Inventory (self-report) was also administered in this study.…”

Validation of the lifestress inventory for people with a mild intellectual disability

“…The sample was drawn from different geographical regions to those used in the Bramston and Fogarty (1995) study and consisted of 238 people, all of whom met three selection criteria: a) according to agency files, they functioned in the mild range of intellectual disability; b) on the basis of staff reports, they had adequate conversational skills; and c) they volunteered to participate in the project after it was explained to them. The mean age of the group was 22.4 years with 65% males and 35% females.…”

“…The final aim was to test different models of the structure of the LI, following uncertainty in the previous study (Bramston & Fogarty, 1995) as to the appropriateness of one-factor, two-factor, or solutions based on some other number of factors. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were used for this purpose.…”

“…The scale in question is the Subjective Stress Scale (SSS: Bramston & Bostock, 1994;Bramston & Fogarty, 1995) which has been modified slightly for the present study and given a more convenient name: the Lifestress Inventory (LI). The first aim of the study was to gather further normative data for the scale by noting the frequency with which the various items were endorsed.…”

“…People with intellectual disabilities form an identifiable group within society in which stress has yet to be systematically explored. There is now increasing evidence to suggest that such people do perceive themselves as experiencing stress (Bramston & Fogarty, 1995). Furthermore, the stress symptoms they experience stem from the same general dimensions already identified in the wider population, although the salience of the dimensions varies somewhat.…”