Abstract
BackgroundStress is a common psychological condition usually associated with many psycho-physical disorders. Stress and its risk factors are frequently seen in Ethiopians including university students. In such circumstances, a valid measure to screen for stress in Ethiopians is necessary. Therefore, we assessed the psychometric properties of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) in Ethiopian university students.MethodsA cross-sectional study with a simple random sampling method was performed on students of Mizan-Tepi University, Mizan-Aman, Ethiopia. The study presents a psychometric investigation on a sample of 387 students (age = 21.8 ± 3.8 years, and body mass index = 20.8 ± 3.2 kg/m2) who completed PSS, Generalized anxiety disorder-7 scale (GAD-7), and a socio-demographics tool. McDonald’s Omega (internal consistency), factor validity for ordinal data and convergent validity (Spearman’s correlation) were assessed.ResultsNo ceiling/floor effect was seen for the total or factor scores of the PSS-10 and PSS-4. Two factor model of the PSS-10 was favored by fit indices with Comparative Fit Index> 0.95, Weighted root mean square residual<.05 and root mean square error of approximation<.08. McDonald’s Omega was 0.78 and 0.68 for the PSS-10: Factor-1 and PSS-10: Factor-2, respectively. McDonald’s Omega was 0.70 and 0.54 for the PSS-4: Factor-1 and PSS-4: Factor-2, respectively. There were moderate-strong correlations (r = 0.62–0.83) between PSS factors and respective items loading on them. PSS scores were correlated with GAD-7 (r = .27–.40, p < .01).ConclusionThe psychometric measures support the validity of the PSS-10 in Ethiopian university students.
Highlights
Stress is a common psychological condition usually associated with many psycho-physical disorders
Stress is the reaction when human perceives a discrepancy in his resources and/or the ability to respond to an event or stimulus or stressor [1]
Stress is common in various sections of the Ethiopian population such as university students [6], epilepsy patients [7], HIV-infected patients [8], nurses [9], and females students with childhood sexual abuse [10]
Summary
Stress is a common psychological condition usually associated with many psycho-physical disorders. Stress and its risk factors are frequently seen in Ethiopians including university students. We assessed the psychometric properties of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) in Ethiopian university students. Perceived stress is a risk factor for poor sleep quality in Ethiopian university students [6]. Many risk factors, i.e., substance use [11,12,13], sleep problems [6, 11, 12], HIV [14], food insecurity [15], poverty [15], and risky sexual behavior [14] for stress and related mental problems are commonly prevalent in Ethiopian populations. The preponderance of depression in Ethiopian psychometric research is evidenced by the availability of validated tools to measure
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