Evaluating the perceived stress scale among UK university students: implications for stress measurement and management
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University life can be stressful, and accurate measurement of perceived stress is important for research and practice. However, despite widespread use, disagreement persists regarding the latent structure of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), which poses serious consequences for how the measure should be administered. Furthermore, factorial invariance between genders has not been established with the 10-item PSS, though gender differences in perceived stress have been detected. This study examined the factor structure, composite reliability, convergent validity, and gender invariance of the PSS-10 among 524 UK university students. Four distinct factor models (one-factor, correlated two-factor, correlated three-factor, and bifactor) were examined using confirmatory factor analysis. The totality of results supported a bifactor solution. Multi-group analysis established configural, metric, and scalar invariance of this model across gender. This study supports the use of total PSS-10 scores with UK university students and suggests the scale is not significantly affected by gender bias.
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The PSS-10 has good reliability and validity in its English, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Dutch versions.
“PSS-10 has good reliability and validity in its versions in English (Denovan et al., 2019), Spanish (González-Ramírez et al., 2013), Brazilian Portuguese (Siqueira Reis et al., 2010), and Dutch (van Eck et al., 1996).”
From Internet-based self-administered intervention to reduce anxiety and depression symptomatology and improve well-being in 7 countries: protocol of a randomized control trial (2024) · cites this paper as Denovan et al., 2019
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- Authors
- Denovan, A., Dagnall, N., Dhingra, K., & Grogan, S.
- Affiliations
- Manchester Metropolitan University (GB)
- Leeds Beckett University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Denovan, Andrew
- Venue
- Studies in Higher Education
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2017-06-22
- Volume
- 44
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 120-133
- ISSN
- 0307-5079 (ISSN-L)
- 1470-174X
- OpenAlex
- W2698362387
- Cited by
- 151
- References
- 69
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 25 · 2023: 29 · 2022: 24 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 5
- FWCI
- 6.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- e-space.mmu.ac.uk
- Locations
- Studies in Higher Education (publishedVersion)
- e-space (Manchester Metropolitan University) (submittedVersion)
- Leeds Beckett Repository (Leeds Beckett University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Student Stress and Coping
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Stress and Burnout Research
- Keywords
- Perceived Stress Scale, PSS-10, perceived stress, university students, factor structure, bifactor model, gender invariance, gender differences, stress measurement, stress management, psychometric validation
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