Name: ________________________________ Date: _________________________
Circle the description that best represents how often you have felt or thought that way during the past month.
1) Been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?
2) Felt that you were unable to control the important things in your life?
3) Felt nervous and ― “stressed”?
4) Felt confident about your ability to handle your personal problems?
5) Felt that things were going your way?
6) Found that you could not cope with all the things that you had to do?
7) Been able to control irritations in your life?
8) Felt that you were on top of things?
9) Been angered because of things that were outside of your control?
10) Felt difficulties were piling up so high that you could not overcome them?
A discussion of stress and the role out-of-school time programs can play in measuring and reducing stress among children and youth.
0=never‚ 1=almost never‚ 2=sometimes‚ 3=fairly‚ often; 4=very often
To score this measure‚ reverse the scores for the positively stated items (items 4‚ 5‚ 7‚ and 8)‚ such that a score of 4 will become a score of 0‚ a score of 3 will become a score of 1‚ and so on. Next‚ sum the reverse-scored items with the remaining 6 items. Scores range from 0 to 40. This scale has no diagnostic cut-offs. Higher scores correspond to a higher level of perceived stress.
Terzian‚ M.‚ Moore‚ K. & Nguyen‚ H. (2010). Assessing stress in children and youth: A guide for out-of-school time program practitioners. Research-to-Results Brief. Child Trends. http://www.afterschoolpgh.org/assets/AssessingStress1.pdf
This scale can be found in:
Cohen‚ S.‚ Kamarck‚ T.‚ Mermelstein‚ R. (1983). A global measure of perceived stress. Journal of Health and Social Behavior‚ 24‚ 385-396.
Cohen‚ S.‚ & Williamson‚ G. (1988). Perceived stress in a probability sample of the United States. In S. Spacapam & S. Oskamp (Eds.)‚ The social psychology of health: Claremont Symposium on applied social psychology. Newbury Park‚ CA: Sage.
updated July 8‚ 2008