Cent Eur J Public Health 2012, 20(2):104-109 | DOI: 10.21101/cejph.a3698

Validation of a Greek Version of PSS-14: a Global Measure of Perceived Stress

Alexia Katsarou¹, Demosthenes Panagiotakos², Aggeliki Zafeiropoulou³, Marios Vryonis³, Ioannis Skoularigis¹, Filippos Tryposkiadis¹, Charalabos Papageorgiou⁴

¹ Department of Cardiology, School of Medicine, University of Thessaly, Larissa, Greece

² Group of Biostatistics and Research Methods, Department of Nutrition and Dietetics, Harokopio University, Athens, Greece

³ Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

⁴ First Department of Psychiatry, Eginition Hospital, School of Medicine, University of Athens, Athens, Greece

Aim: To evaluate validity of the Greek version of a global measure of perceived stress PSS-14 (Perceived Stress Scale - 14 item).

Materials and Methods: The original PSS.14 (theoretical range 0.56) was translated into Greek and then back-translated. One hundred men and women (39±10 years old, 40 men) participated in the validation process. Firstly, participants completed the Greek PSS-14 and, then they were interviewed by a psychologist specializing in stress management. Cronbach's alpha (α) evaluated internal consistency of the measurement, whereas Kendall's tau-b and Bland & Altman methods assessed consistency with the clinical evaluation. Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor analyses were conducted to reveal hidden factors within the data and to confirm the two-dimensional character of the scale.

Results: Mean (SD) PSS-14 score was 25(7.9). Strong internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.847) as well as moderate-to-good concordance between clinical assessment and PSS-14 (Kendall's tau-b = 0.43, p<0.01) were observed. Two factors were extracted. Factor one explained 34.7% of variability and was heavily laden by positive items, and factor two that explained 10.6% of the variability by negative items. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the model with 2 factors had chi-square equal to 241.23 (p<0.001), absolute fix indexes were good (i.e. GFI=0.733, AGFI=0.529), and incremental fix indexes were also adequate (i.e. NFI=0.89 and CFI=0.92).

Conclusion: The developed Greek version of PSS-14 seems to be a valid instrument for the assessment of perceived stress in the Greek adult population living in urban areas; a finding that supports its local use in research settings as an evaluation tool measuring perceived stress, mainly as a risk factor but without diagnostic properties.

Keywords: PSS-14, validation, stress, Greece

Received: June 2, 2011; Published: June 1, 2012  Show citation