Assessing functional impairment in university students: psychometric study of the Portuguese Work and Social Adjustment Scale in a help-seeking sample

Abstract

Background: It has been advocated that higher education settings should promote a supporting environment devoted to improving several dimensions of well-being of their communities. Particularly in clinical services, the assessment of functional impairment is of outmost importance. Goals: The present study aimed at analysing factor structure and psychometric properties of the Work and Social Adjustment Scale (WSAS), a 5-item scale developed to assess the patients’ perceived functional impairment resulting from a health problem in five dimensions: work, social leisure activities, private leisure activities, and relationships with others. Methods: A sample of 207 university students that sought mental health support (22 years old of mean age; majority female and undergraduate) answered a set of self-report questionnaires including the WSAS and measures of anxiety, depression and quality of life. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis indicated an adequate fit to the single-factor structure, and the scale presented very good reliability. Concurrent, convergent and incremental validity were also found, and the WSAS differentiated groups with different levels of anxiety and depressive symptoms. Discussion: Overall, our results corroborate that WSAS is a brief, reliable and valid measure, useful in research and clinical settings. Further research is needed particularly regarding temporal stability, discriminative power between clinical and nonclinical populations, and within clinical samples between different diagnosis.