Psychometric evaluation of Turkish version of the Perceived Stress Scale with Turkish college students.

BACKGROUND: The Turkish version of the Perceived Stress Scale (T-PSS-10) measures the extent to which situations in one's life are appraised as stressful.

AIMS: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the measurement structure of T-PSS-10.

METHOD: Two-hundred and thirty-five Turkish university students (93 men and 142 women) completed the T-PSS-10, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), the General Anxiety Disorder 7-Item Scale (GAD-7), and the Inventory of Common Problems (ICP).

RESULTS: Confirmatory factor analysis results indicated that a one-factor model did not fit the data, whereas a two-factor correlated model (stress related self-efficacy beliefs, stress related feelings of helplessness) provided a better fit between the model and the data. Significant moderate correlations were found for the stress-related self-efficacy beliefs and stress-related feelings of helplessness factors with depression, anxiety, academic difficulty, relationship problems and health problems. The internal consistency reliability coefficients for the stress-related self-efficacy beliefs and stress-related feelings of helplessness factors were 0.68 and 0.85, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS: This study provided support for the reliability and validity of T-PSS-10 suggesting that it can be used as a screening instrument by health professionals working with Turkish college students.