Measurement of Perceived Stress Among Pregnant Women: A Comparison of Two Different Instruments

Abstract

Objective Assess the amount of agreement between the classification of stress from the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) and the Assessment of Stress portion of the Prenatal Psychosocial Profile (PPP) among pregnant women. Methods A secondary data analysis on a cross-sectional study of 301 pregnant women from the New Orleans and Baton Rouge areas who were exposed to Hurricane Katrina was conducted. Women with complete data (219) were analyzed. Women scoring in the third tertile of each instrument were compared. The kappa statistic was used to assess agreement between instruments. Additional comparisons were made with three instruments that measure other important psychosocial constructs that could be related to stress: the Edinburgh Depression Scale (EDS) and the Assessments of Support (partner and other support) and Self-Esteem from the PPP. Results No significant difference was found between the two tests. The PSS and the PPP were both statistically significantly correlated to each other (ρ=0.71, p<.01). Thirty-five women were classified discordantly resulting in a Kappa Coefficient of 0.61 (95% CI 0.50-0.72, p<.01). No significant differences were found between these two instruments in correlation with the EDS (PPP, r=0.76; PSS, r=0.72; p<.01 for each), partner support (PPP, r=−0.47; PSS r=−0.46; p<.01 for each), other support (PPP, r=−0.31; PSS r=−0.32; p<.01 for each) and self-esteem (PPP, r=−0.41; PSS, r=−0.52; p<.01 for each), respectively. Conclusions Given the similarities between the PSS and PPP, researchers are encouraged to choose and administer one instrument to participants, or to use the instruments in combination as an external reliability check.

A Study on Pregnancy, Perceived Stress and Depression

“…Our study highlights that 75% of pregnant women were suffering from some form of stress. 24 Our findings are similar to these results.…”

“…22 Solivan et al reported that the majority of women (52.5%) had some college education and 16.0% had either a college education or higher. 24 These results resemble with our findings where all were literate and more than 50% were educated. In our findings, about 50% were home makers which resembles with study of Vijayaselv et al with the most clients being home makers.…”

“…35 The present study reveals no or mild stress level among antenatal women in 22% and moderate to severe stress in 6%. Solivan et al 24 found 31.1% with moderate stress and 28.8% severe stress in a sample of 258 of pregnant women. Priya et al found 23% of antenatal females with stress.…”

Association between pregnant women’s experience of stress and partners’ fly-in-fly-out work

“…Stress was assessed with a self-report with the Perceived Stress Scale PSS 43 which has been shown to be a valid instrument to assess stress with pregnant women 44 . The PSS consists of 14 questions asking how often in the past month situations or conditions were considered stressful, as rated on a five point rating scale, labelled from 'never' to 'very often'.…”

Allergic disease and risk of stress in pregnant women: a PreventADALL study

“…However, whereas depression and anxiety can be identified using established diagnostic tools, similar assessments are lacking for stress. Cohen's perceived stress scale (PSS) is a validated method to capture maternal stress [5,6], and cut-off for high stress levels has been used to define groups of individuals perceiving higher stress [7].…”