The Perceived Stress Scale. Preliminary Psychometric Study with Spanish HIV+ Sample Dr. E.A. Remor and Dr. J.A. Carrobl

1. The Perceived Stress Scale. Preliminary Psychometric Study with Spanish HIV+ Sample Dr. E.A. Remorand Dr. J.A. Carrobles Departamento de Psicología Biológica y de la Salud Facultad de Psicología 22nd International Conference STAR, 12-14 July 2001. Palma de Mallorca, Spain

2. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) developed by Cohen, Kamarck & Mermelstein (1983) The PSS is being used in many health areas, and this instrument has been shown to be very useful to assess stress. The PSS was designed to measure the degree to which situations in one's life are appraised as stressful. The items are easy to understand and the response alternatives are simple to grasp, and previous findings suggest that PSS have good psychometric properties to screen perceived stress. Therefore it seems necessary to study the psychometric properties of PSS in a Spanish sample. We tested the psychometric properties of the PSS in people living with HIV. 22nd International Conference STAR, 12-14 July 2001. Palma de Mallorca, Spain

3. Description of the PSS-14 item The PSS is a 14-item self-report instrument with five-point scale (0 = never, 1 = almost never, 2 =sometimes, 3 = fairly often, 4 = very often). The PSS scores are obtained by reversing the scores on the seven positive items, e.g., 0=4, 1=3,2=2, etc., and then summing across all 14 items. Items 4,5,6,7,9,10 and 13 are the positively stated items. The Spanish version of the PSS-14 item is available in the Dr. Cohen’s Web Page. www.psy.cmu.edu/~scohen/PSS.html 22nd International Conference STAR, 12-14 July 2001. Palma de Mallorca, Spain

4. Aims • Study the psychometric properties of a sample in HIV+ patients • Reliability (Internal Consistency) • Criterion validity: concurrent (correlation) and predictive (regression analysis) 22nd International Conference STAR, 12-14 July 2001. Palma de Mallorca, Spain

5. METHOD Participants The sample consisted in 100 HIV+ Subjects. Twenty eigth of they are asymptomatic, thirty five are symptomatic and thirty seven had AIDS diagnosis. Mean age : 37,32 (DT 8,3), Range 24-69 Gender: 41% Women, 59% Men Education level: 2% No formal education, 50% Elementary School, 17% High School, 19% College, 12% Others Employment conditions: 63% Employed, 19% Unemployed, 11% Domestic Work, 7% Social Security 22nd International Conference STAR, 12-14 July 2001. Palma de Mallorca, Spain

6. Instruments and Variables 22nd International Conference STAR, 12-14 July 2001. Palma de Mallorca, Spain

7. Procedure • Individual administration • Sample selection (4 consecutive patients each day in the hospital unit) • Explanation of the study and protocol • Informed consent • Self-administered protocol 22nd International Conference STAR, 12-14 July 2001. Palma de Mallorca, Spain

8. RESULTS • Reliability PSS-14 items Crombach’s Alpha .67 22nd International Conference STAR, 12-14 July 2001. Palma de Mallorca, Spain

9. RESULTS Criterion Validity: concurrent and predictive 22nd International Conference STAR, 12-14 July 2001. Palma de Mallorca, Spain

10. RESULTS Criterion Validity: concurrent and predictive 22nd International Conference STAR, 12-14 July 2001. Palma de Mallorca, Spain

11. Conclusions • Internal consistency of Perceived Stress Scale -14 items (PSS-14) was acceptable. • Concurrent and predictive validity of the PSS-14 show good results. • Results suggest that the PSS-14 is a reliable and valid instrument for assessing perceive stress in people living with HIV. However, more research is needed addressing healthy adult people to know the power of PSS-14 to screening stress response in others contexts. 22nd International Conference STAR, 12-14 July 2001. Palma de Mallorca, Spain