This paper presents evidence from three samples, two of college students and one of participants in a community smoking-cessation program, for the reliability and validity of a 14-item instrument, the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), designed to measure the degree to which situations in one's life are appraised as stressful. The PSS showed adequate reliability and, as predicted, was correlated with life-event scores, depressive and physical symptomatology, utilization of health services, social anxiety, and smoking-reduction maintenance. In all comparisons, the PSS was a better predictor of the outcome in question than were life-event scores. When compared to a depressive symptomatology scale, the PSS was found to measure a different and independently predictive construct. Additional data indicate adequate reliability and validity of a four-item version of the PSS for telephone interviews. The PSS is suggested for examining the role of nonspecific appraised stress in the etiology of disease and behavioral disorders and as an outcome measure of experienced levels of stress.

/pdf/a-global-measure-of-perceived-stress-3tkin3w070.pdf

A global measure of perceived stress.

The Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) has been developed from a six-country WHO collaborative project as a screening instrument for hazardous and harmful alcohol consumption. It is a 10-item questionnaire which covers the domains of alcohol consumption, drinking behaviour, and alcohol-related problems. Questions were selected from a 150-item assessment schedule (which was administered to 1888 persons attending representative primary health care facilities) on the basis of their representativeness for these conceptual domains and their perceived usefulness for intervention. Responses to each question are scored from 0 to 4, giving a maximum possible score of 40. Among those diagnosed as having hazardous or harmful alcohol use, 92% had an AUDIT score of 8 or more, and 94% of those with non-hazardous consumption had a score of less than 8. AUDIT provides a simple method of early detection of hazardous and harmful alcohol use in primary health care settings and is the first instrument of its type to be derived on the basis of a cross-national study.

/pdf/development-of-the-alcohol-use-disorders-identification-test-3h699nkijs.pdf

Development of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT): WHO Collaborative Project on Early Detection of Persons with Harmful Alcohol Consumption-II

Major perspectives concerning stress are presented with the goal of clarifying the nature of what has proved to be a heuristic but vague construct. Current conceptualizations of stress are challenged as being too phenomenological and ambiguous, and consequently, not given to direct empirical testing. Indeed, it is argued that researchers have tended to avoid the problem of defining stress, choosing to study stress without reference to a clear framework. A new stress model called the model of conservation of resources is presented as an alternative. This resource-oriented model is based on the supposition that people strive to retain, project, and build resources and that what is threatening to them is the potential or actual loss of these valued resources. Implications of the model of conservation of resources for new research directions are discussed.

Conservation of resources. A new attempt at conceptualizing stress.

This study uses longitudinal data to observe how life events, chronic life strains, self concepts, coping, and social supports come together to form a process of stress. It takes involuntary job disruptions as illustrating life events and shows how they adversely affect enduring role strains, economic strains in particular. These exacerbated strains, in turn, erode positive concepts of self, such as self-esteem and mastery. The diminished self-concepts then leave one especially vulnerable to experiencing symptoms of stress, of which depression is of special interest to this analysis. The interventions of coping and social supports are mainly indirect; that is, they do not act directly to buffer depression. Instead, they minimize the elevation of depression by dampening the antecedent process.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2136676.pdf

The stress process.

What good is self-control? We incorporated a new measure of individual differences in self-control into two large investigations of a broad spectrum of behaviors. The new scale showed good internal consistency and retest reliability. Higher scores on self-control correlated with a higher grade point average, better adjustment (fewer reports of psychopathology, higher self-esteem), less binge eating and alcohol abuse, better relationships and interpersonal skills, secure attachment, and more optimal emotional responses. Tests for curvilinearity failed to indicate any drawbacks of so-called overcontrol, and the positive effects remained after controlling for social desirability. Low self-control is thus a significant risk factor for a broad range of personal and interpersonal problems.

/pdf/high-self-control-predicts-good-adjustment-less-pathology-19qckrshli.pdf

High self-control predicts good adjustment, less pathology, better grades, and interpersonal success.

The Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (MAST), devised to provide a consistent, quantifiable, structured interview instrument to detect alcoholism, consists of 25 questions that can be rapidly administered. Five groups were given the MAST: hospitalized alcoholics, a control group, persons convicted of drunk driving, persons convicted of drunk and disorderly behavior, and drivers whose licenses were under review. The validity of the MAST was assessed by searching the records of legal, social, and medical agencies and reviewing the subjects' driving and criminal records. The MAST responses of 15 subjects who were found to be alcoholic in the record search were analyzed to determine where the screening failures had occurred. Recommendations are made for reducing the number of such "falsė negatives."

The michigan alcoholism screening test: the quest for a new diagnostic instrument

The Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test and a shortened 13-item version can reliably be used as self-administered questionnaires.

A self-administered Short Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (SMAST)

The research of Holmes, Rahe, and their associates disclosing that life events and stress are related to the onset of physical illness is extended to the psychological domain in the present study. Using a modified version of their life events checklist, it is shown that an accumulation of life events is correlated with self-reported tension and distress, with emotional disturbances manifested by depression, paranoid thinking, suicidal proclivity, and anxiety, as well as with behavioral indications of stress such as drinking and traffic accidents. Most importantly, it is shown that these relationships do not hold for desirable life events but primarily for undesirable events. Thus, the authors suggest that the quality of the events in terms of their desirability is the crucial determinant of stress and the above-mentioned relationships rather than simply the life change produced by the events, as suggested in earlier studies. Methodological and theoretical implications for future research are discussed, emphasizing the importance of studying additional stress-relevant dimensions such as anticipation of the events and control over their outcome.

Desirable versus undesirable life events: their relationship to stress and mental distress.

In a departure from traditional personality-oriented traffic accident research, the authors assessed, through a self-administered questionnaire, the role of transitory life changes and subjective stress among 532 general and alcoholic male drivers. They found that these two factors were significantly correlated with traffic accidents but that personality and demographic variables were not. The need for additional research in this area is emphasized.

Life events, subjective stress, and traffic accidents.

Significantly more psychopathology and social stress were present in 96 drivers causing fatal accidents than in a matched control group. In the fatality group, prior accidents were significantly related to psychopathology but not to social stress. Twenty percent of the fatality drivers had acutely disturbing experiences within six hours of causing a fatal accident. The authors argue that stricter controls for drivers are necessary if our highways are to be made safer.

Melvin L. Selzer

Papers

The michigan alcoholism screening test: the quest for a new diagnostic instrument

A self-administered Short Michigan Alcoholism Screening Test (SMAST)

Desirable versus undesirable life events: their relationship to stress and mental distress.

Life events, subjective stress, and traffic accidents.

Fatal Accidents: The Role of Psychopathology, Social Stress, and Acute Disturbance