Abstract

Stress has a major negative impact on the development of psychopathology and contributes to the onset of adverse physical conditions. Timely recognition and monitoring of stress-related problems are therefore important, especially in client populations that are more vulnerable to stress, such as people with mild intellectual disabilities (MID). Recent research on the use of physiological measures to assess stress levels emphasize that, in addition to these measures, self-report instruments are necessary to gain insight into the individual perception and impact of stress on daily life. However, there is no current overview of self-report stress measures that focus on the experience of stress in the present moment or in daily life. To provide an overview of the existing self-report stress measures for clinicians and researchers, a scoping review was conducted. In addition, to advise clinical professionals on the use of self-report measures of stress for people with MID, the results of an expert consultation were used to refine the preliminary findings. A systematic scoping literature search resulted in a total of 13 self-reported stress measures that met the final inclusion criteria, of which three were developed specifically for assessing stress in adults with MID (GAS-ID, LI, and SAS-ID). For each included self-report stress measure, the psychometric quality, assessment procedure, and suitability for adults with MID were reported. These were supplemented by the findings from the expert consultation. Implications for clinical practice on the use of self-report stress measures, particularly for people with MID, are discussed. Recommendations for future research and development are given.

Highlights

  • Recognizing a person’s stress-related problems is increasingly important, as ever more evidence on the adverse effects of stress on health and well-being is accumulated

  • They unequivocally indicated that the factors that improve appropriate use by people with mild intellectual disabilities (MID) in general apply to the self-reported measurement of stress

  • The need to measure the degree of stress as accurately as possible in people with MID is reflected in both the literature reviewed and the information of the consulted experts

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Summary

Introduction

Recognizing a person’s stress-related problems is increasingly important, as ever more evidence on the adverse effects of stress on health and well-being is accumulated. The literature reports that it is difficult for many people to both understand the destructive impact of daily life stress experiences (Casey, 2017; de Witte et al, 2020a) and to reduce or cope with stress without any professional support (World Health Organization, 2010). This is especially the case for adults with mild intellectual disabilities (MID), as they experience stress more frequently in daily life than people without intellectual disabilities (Emerson, 2003; Hatton and Emerson, 2004; Schuengel and Janssen, 2006; World Health Organization, 2010). People with MID have been found to have fewer resources to cope with daily life stress experiences (Lunsky and Benson, 2001; Hartley et al, 2009a; Scott and Havercamp, 2014)

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