Parental Stress Scale: Validation study with a Portuguese population of parents of children from 3 to 10 years old

Abstract

The aim of this study was to validate the Parental Stress Scale (PSS) for Portuguese parents and to further investigate the scale's criterion-related validity. A two-stage stratified sample of the Portuguese population of parents, with children attending public preschools and primary schools, was obtained, totalizing 3842 parents of children between 3 and 10 years old. Parents completed a Parental Concerns Scale and the Portuguese version of the PSS. Results support the four-factor structure of the Portuguese version of the PSS. Higher levels of parental stress were reported by parents of boys, with lower educational levels; older, divorced or single parents; unemployed mothers; and with a higher number of children. Parental concerns and parental stress' comparative study reported very low correlations between the two constructs. This study supported evidence for the PSS' validity with a stratified sample of Portuguese parents of children between 3 and 10 years old. Moreover, our findings reported the scale's divergent validity with a Parental Concerns Scale. These results point to the importance of assessing both dimensions in family practice.

The Parental Stress Scale revisited: Rasch-based construct validity for Danish parents of children 2–18 years old with and without behavioral problems

“…Lastly, only two studies [19,29] have investigated whether PSS items were more strongly correlated that could be explained by the constructs measured (i.e. items are locally dependent), and both found this not to be the case for items 1 and 17, and one of the studies also for items 3, 4, 9, 10, 12, 16 and 18 (Additional file 1: Figure 1).…”

“…Berry and Jones [1] originally reported that the full PSS had adequate reliability (Cronbach's alpha = .83) as well as adequate reliability over time (test-retest correlation = .81 over 6 weeks) Other studies [19,28,30,37,38] have reported corresponding reliability results for different language versions with Cronbach's alpha ranging from .73 [27] to .90 [30] for the full PSS. The studies that report reliability for the two PSS dimensions separately find varying levels of reliability for both the parental stress dimension (.64-.71 [29]; .76 [26]; and .79 [27]) and the parental satisfaction dimension (.61 [29]; .77 [26]; and .69 [27]).…”

Understanding the Parental Stress Scale With a Foster Carer Cohort

“…Over the past 40 years of parenting research, several measures have been developed that purport to assess the impact of parenting on parents and carers (Louie et al, 2017). The Parenting Stress Index (PSI; Abidin, 1995) was developed and has been used extensively to measure perceived stress specific to the parenting role (Algarvio et al, 2018;Cheung, 2000;Lessenberry & Rehfeldt, 2004) and purportedly measures the impact of stress in the parent-child system. It also has been used extensively with children from clinical populations as a predictor of cognitive and behavioural problems (Aracena et al, 2016).…”

“…Therefore, PSS items were designed to reflect these two dimensions with positive emotion, sense of fulfillment, and satisfaction with the parenting role alongside stressful elements such as demands on time, energy, self-esteem, and control (Berry & Jones, 1995;Louie et al, 2017;Zelman & Ferro, 2018). The developers proposed that the total PSS score represents the balance between the positive and negative aspects of parenting (Algarvio et al, 2018;Lessenberry & Rehfeldt, 2004). However, an approach that collapses scores across the two subscales loses important information about the complexities of the caregiver role.…”

“…While the original four-factor structure has been replicated with a 16-item version of the PSS (Algarvio et al, 2018;Zelman & Ferro, 2018), several studies have identified two major factors (Brito & Faro, 2017;Cheung, 2000;Oronoz et al, 2007;Pontoppidan et al, 2017). Using Rasch modeling, Leung and Tsang (2010) identified one underlying dimension measuring both positive and negative parental stress.…”