CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 72Mental Health Research TopicsPsychometric Methodologies and TestingHealth and Well-being Studies

Assessment of microstressors in adults: questionnaire development and ecological validation of the mainz inventory of microstressors.

Open access
Chmitorz, Andrea, Kurth, Karolina, Mey, Lara K, Wenzel, Mario, Lieb, Klaus, Tüscher, Oliver, Kubiak, Thomas, Kalisch, Raffael·2020·JMIR Mental Health
DOI 10.2196/14566PMC PMC7063526

Published version of a preprint

Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Many existing scales for microstressor assessment do not differentiate between objective (ie, observable) stressor events and stressful cognitions or concerns. They often mix items assessing objective stressor events with items measuring other aspects of stress, such as perceived stressor severity, the evoked stress reaction, or further consequences on health, which may result in spurious associations in studies that include other questionnaires that measure such constructs. Most scales were developed several decades ago; therefore, modern life stressors may not be represented. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) allows for sampling of current behaviors and experiences in real time and in the natural habitat, thereby maximizing the generalization of the findings to real-life situations (ie, ecological validity) and minimizing recall bias. However, it has not been used for the validation of microstressor questionnaires so far. OBJECTIVE: The aim is to develop a questionnaire that (1) allows for retrospective assessment of microstressors over one week, (2) focuses on objective (ie, observable) microstressors, (3) includes stressors of modern life, and (4) separates stressor occurrence from perceived stressor severity. METHODS: Cross-sectional (N=108) and longitudinal studies (N=10 and N=70) were conducted to evaluate the Mainz Inventory of Microstressors (MIMIS). In the longitudinal studies, EMA was used to compare stressor data, which was collected five times per day for 7 or 30 days with retrospective reports (end-of-day, end-of-week). Pearson correlations and multilevel modeling were used in the analyses. RESULTS: High correlations were found between end-of-week, end-of-day, and EMA data for microstressor occurrence (counts) (r≥.69 for comparisons per week, r≥.83 for cumulated data) and for mean perceived microstressor severity (r≥.74 for comparisons per week, r≥.85 for cumulated data). The end-of-week questionnaire predicted the EMA assessments sufficiently (counts: beta=.03, 95% CI .02-.03, P<.001; severity: beta=.73, 95% CI .59-.88, P<.001) and the association did not change significantly over four subsequent weeks. CONCLUSIONS: Our results provide evidence for the ecological validity of the MIMIS questionnaire.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.2196/14566

Cites

41 of 41 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Adversity may refer both to severe and traumatic life events and to more common and less disruptive stressors such as daily hassles.

    “Furthermore, adversity may refer both to severe and traumatic life events but also to more common and less disruptive stressors such as daily hassles (Fletcher and Sarkar, 2013; Chmitorz et al., 2020).”

    From Media for Coping During COVID-19 Social Distancing: Stress, Anxiety, and Psychological Well-Being (2020) · cites this paper as Chmitorz et al., 2020

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 4

  1. [6]Selye H The Stress of Life 1978 New York McGraw-Hill
  2. [7]Schwarzer R Schulz U Nezu AM Nezu CM Geller PA The role of stressful life events Handbook of Psychology: Health Psychology 2003 Hoboken, NJ John Wiley & Sons
  3. [11]Lazarus RS Folkman S Manual for the Hassles and Uplifts Scale: Research Edition 1989 Paolo Alto, NM Consulting Psychologists Press
  4. [20]Eckenrode J Bolger N Cohen S Kessler RC Underwood GL Daily and within-day event measurement Measuring Stress: A Guide for Health and Social Scientists 1995 New York Oxford University Press 80 101

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Chmitorz, A., Kurth, K., Mey, L. K., Wenzel, M., Lieb, K., Tüscher, O., Kubiak, T., & Kalisch, R.
Affiliations
  • Esslingen University of Applied Sciences (DE)
  • Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (DE)
  • Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research (DE)
Corresponding author
Chmitorz, Andrea
ORCID
Venue
JMIR Mental Health
Publisher
JMIR Publications Inc.
Published
2020-02-24
Volume
7
Issue
2
Pages
e14566
ISSN
2368-7959 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.2196/14566
PMC
PMC7063526
OpenAlex
W2986335045
Cited by
72
References
41
Citations by year
2026: 10 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 8 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 2
FWCI
7.66
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • JMIR Mental Health (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Informationszentrum Lebenswissenschaften (ZB MED) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
  • European Commission (777084, HORIZON2020)
  • Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (CRC--1193, DFG CRC 1193)
  • Stiftung Rheinland-Pfalz für Innovation (961‐386261/1080, No 961-386261/1080, MARP program, No 961-386261/1080)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Mental Health Research Topics
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Psychometric Methodologies and Testing
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Health and Well-being Studies
Keywords
ecological momentary assessment, ecological validity, questionnaire development, adults, retrospective reports

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review