Purpose of the Scale

The PQS-64 questionnaire aims to assess adolescent stress. In simple terms, it seeks to evaluate the stress that adolescents experience when dealing with everyday problems.

Scale Analysis

The PQS-64 was developed by Seiffge-Krenke in 1995 and is a self-report scale consisting of 64 questions. Each question addresses issues that have the potential to stress adolescents and is assigned to one of seven domains identified as stress-inducing for them. More specifically, the domains covered by the questions are related to problems at school, future concerns, relationships with parents, peers, leisure time, cross-gender relationships, and the adolescents’ own self.

Scoring and Statistical Analysis

Responses to the questions are recorded by adolescents on a five-point Likert-type scale with extreme poles, where 1 means “does not cause me any stress at all” and 5 means “causes me a great deal of stress.” In other words, adolescents indicate the degree of psychological pressure they experience in the situation described by each question. Finally, the average score across all questions within each of the seven domains reflects the level of stress the adolescent experiences in that specific life domain. More specifically, the higher the score an individual receives in a domain, the greater the stress they experience in that area.

Validity and Reliability

It has been established that the PQS-64 demonstrates good content validity and construct validity. Furthermore, the internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s α) indices for the seven domains range from 0.70 to 0.92.

References

Greek Literature
Tzelepi-Giannatou, E. (2003). Adolescence and stress: The experience of adolescents in urban areas. Modern Education: Quarterly Review of Educational Issues, (128), 60–72.
Foreign Literature
Ranta, R. S., Sharma, V. K., & Gupta, P. (2015). Parenting stress and need assessment of families with disabled children across Himachal Himalaya. Assessment, 3(2).
Seiffge-Krenke, I. (2013). Stress, coping, and relationships in adolescence. Psychology Press.