Objective. To translate the Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) into Chinese, validate its reliability and validity in nursing students and investigate the perceived stress level of nursing students. Method. Forward-and back-translation combined with expert assessment and cross-cultural adaptations were used to construct the Chinese version of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire (C-PSQ). This research adopted a stratifiedsampling method among 1519 nursing students in 30 classes of Ningbo College of Health Sciences to assess the reliability and validity of the C-PSQ. Among them, we used the Recent C-PSQ (only the last month). Results. The C-PSQ retained all 30 items of the original scale.Principal component analysis extracted five factors that explained 52.136% of the total variance. The S-CVI/Ave was 0.913. Concurrent validity was 0.525 and 0.567 for anxiety and depression respectively. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis were as follows: χ 2 /df=4.376, RMR=.023, GFI=.921, AGFI=.907, CFI=.916, RMSEA=.048, PNFI=.832, PGFI=.782, CN=342 and AIC/CAIC=.809 . The scale's Cronbach's alpha was 0.922, and Cronbach's α of each dimension was 0.899 (worries/tension), 0.821 (joy), 0.688 (overload), 0.703 (conflict), 0.523 (self-realization) . The correlation coefficient between the first and second test, the first and third test, and the second and third test was 0.725, 0.787, and 0.731, respectively. Mean values and distribution of overall PSQ index in nursing students was 0.399±0.138. Different demographic factors were significantly associated with the perceived stress of nursing students. Conclusion. The C-PSQ has an appropriate reliability and validity, which means that the scale can be used as a universal tool for psychosomatic studies. The perceived stress of nursing students was relatively high. Further studies are needed.PeerJ reviewing PDF | († These authors contributed equally to this work. hbstractObjective. To translate the Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) into Chinese, validate its reliability and validity in nursino students and investioate the perceived stress level of nursino students. Method. Forward-and back-translation combined with expert assessment and crosscultural adaptations were used to construct the Chinese version of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire (C-PSQ). This research adopted a stratified samplino method amono 1519 nursino students in 30 classes of Ninobo Colleoe of Health Sciences to assess the reliability and validity of the C-PSQ. Amono them, we used the Recent C-PSQ (only the last month). Results. The C-PSQ retained all 30 items of the orioinal scale. Principal component analysis extracted five factors that explained 52.136% of the total variance. The S-CVI/Ave was 0.913. Concurrent validity was 0.525 and 0.567 for anxiety and depression respectively. The results of the confirmatory factor analysis were as follows: χ 2 /df=4. 376, RMR=.023, GFI=.921, AGFI=.907, CFI=.916, RMSEA=.048, PNFI=.832, PGFI=.782, CN=342 and AIC/CAIC=.809. The scale's Cronbach's alpha was 0.922, and...