Stress among medical students: factor structure of the University Stress Scale among Italian students
Objectives The main purpose of the current study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the University Stress Scale (USS) among Italian medical students.Design, setting and participants A cross-sectional observational study based on data from an online cross-section...
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BMJ Publishing Group
2020-09-01
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| Series: | BMJ Open |
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| author | Alex Burdorf Maura Galletta Igor Portoghese Fabio Porru Marcello Campagna |
| author_facet | Alex Burdorf Maura Galletta Igor Portoghese Fabio Porru Marcello Campagna |
| author_sort | Alex Burdorf |
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| description | Objectives The main purpose of the current study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the University Stress Scale (USS) among Italian medical students.Design, setting and participants A cross-sectional observational study based on data from an online cross-sectional survey from 11 to 23 December 2018. A total of 1858 Italian medical students participated in the study.Outcome measures We measured perceived stress among medical students using the USS, the Effort-Reward Imbalance Student Questionnaire (ERI-SQ) and the Kessler-10 (K10).Results Results showed that a bifactor-Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling solution provided excellent levels of fit to the data. Our results suggest that the modified version of 19 items of the Italian version of the USS does not have a simple unidimensional structure. Overall, an inspection of ancillary indices (omega indices, ECV and percentage of uncontaminated correlations) revealed that these were too low to suggest the use of the USS as a composite measure of university stress. We tested an alternative unidimensional short form (eight items; USS-S) that assessed all the five sources of stress. This version provided a good fit to the data. Evidence of convergent validity of the USS-S was observed by analysing the correlations between the USS and ERI-SQ (ranging from −0.34 to 0.37, all p<0.01). Finally, based on the clinical cut-off recommended on the K10, results from receiver operating characteristic showed that considering the clinical cut-off of the USS is 7.5 and that 59.70% of medical students reported stress levels in the clinical range.Conclusion Finally, our results showed a lack of support for using the USS to measure a general university stress factor, as the general USS factor accounted for little variance in our sample. In this sense, stress scores among Italian students can be better assessed by the use of the USS-S. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-9ca162bb806741fdb95ed7de2fb0979d |
| institution | Kabale University |
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| language | English |
| publishDate | 2020-09-01 |
| publisher | BMJ Publishing Group |
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| series | BMJ Open |
| spelling | doaj-art-9ca162bb806741fdb95ed7de2fb0979d2025-01-08T08:20:13ZengBMJ Publishing GroupBMJ Open2044-60552020-09-0110910.1136/bmjopen-2019-035255Stress among medical students: factor structure of the University Stress Scale among Italian studentsAlex Burdorf0Maura Galletta1Igor Portoghese2Fabio Porru3Marcello Campagna41 Department of Public Health, Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands1 Department of Medical Sciences and Public Health, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, ItalyDepartment of Medical Sciences and Public Health, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Sardinia, ItalyDepartment of Medical Sciences and Public Health, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, Sardinia, ItalyDepartment of Medical Sciences and Public Health, University of Cagliari, Cagliari, ItalyObjectives The main purpose of the current study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the University Stress Scale (USS) among Italian medical students.Design, setting and participants A cross-sectional observational study based on data from an online cross-sectional survey from 11 to 23 December 2018. A total of 1858 Italian medical students participated in the study.Outcome measures We measured perceived stress among medical students using the USS, the Effort-Reward Imbalance Student Questionnaire (ERI-SQ) and the Kessler-10 (K10).Results Results showed that a bifactor-Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling solution provided excellent levels of fit to the data. Our results suggest that the modified version of 19 items of the Italian version of the USS does not have a simple unidimensional structure. Overall, an inspection of ancillary indices (omega indices, ECV and percentage of uncontaminated correlations) revealed that these were too low to suggest the use of the USS as a composite measure of university stress. We tested an alternative unidimensional short form (eight items; USS-S) that assessed all the five sources of stress. This version provided a good fit to the data. Evidence of convergent validity of the USS-S was observed by analysing the correlations between the USS and ERI-SQ (ranging from −0.34 to 0.37, all p<0.01). Finally, based on the clinical cut-off recommended on the K10, results from receiver operating characteristic showed that considering the clinical cut-off of the USS is 7.5 and that 59.70% of medical students reported stress levels in the clinical range.Conclusion Finally, our results showed a lack of support for using the USS to measure a general university stress factor, as the general USS factor accounted for little variance in our sample. In this sense, stress scores among Italian students can be better assessed by the use of the USS-S.https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/9/e035255.full |
| spellingShingle | Alex Burdorf Maura Galletta Igor Portoghese Fabio Porru Marcello Campagna Stress among medical students: factor structure of the University Stress Scale among Italian students BMJ Open |
| title | Stress among medical students: factor structure of the University Stress Scale among Italian students |
| title_full | Stress among medical students: factor structure of the University Stress Scale among Italian students |
| title_fullStr | Stress among medical students: factor structure of the University Stress Scale among Italian students |
| title_full_unstemmed | Stress among medical students: factor structure of the University Stress Scale among Italian students |
| title_short | Stress among medical students: factor structure of the University Stress Scale among Italian students |
| title_sort | stress among medical students factor structure of the university stress scale among italian students |
| url | https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/10/9/e035255.full |
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