Profiles of adolescent stress: The development of the adolescent stress questionnaire (ASQ)
- 30 June 2007
- journal article
- Published by Wiley in Journal of Adolescence
- Vol. 30 (3), 393-416
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2006.04.004
Abstract
The importance of stress in the understanding of adolescent health and well-being is widely documented. The measurement of adolescent stress has however been subjected to sufficient methodological and conceptual criticism in recent times to warrant a concerted re-evaluation of the exercise. This study sought information on the nature of adolescent stressors, building on a previous instrument developed by the first author to ask adolescents themselves to inform the development of a pool of new items reflecting stressor experience and to advise on the wording of these items to comprehensively assess that experience. This pool of items was then administered as a self-reported questionnaire to a large sample of school-age adolescents (N>1000) together with a scale to assess the intensity of distress arising from stressor occurrence. Principal components analysis of the questionnaire yielded 10 internally reliable dimensions of adolescent stress, the nature of which were consistent with the available literature on adolescent stressor experience. Scales constructed from this PCA related positively to measures of anxiety and depression, and negatively to a measure of self-esteem, suggesting that they were valid measures of adolescent stress. Test-retest reliability was good for all scales. The resultant Adolescent Stress Questionnaire (ASQ) is therefore suggested to have potential for the measurement of adolescent stress in both research and clinical contexts.Keywords
This publication has 71 references indexed in Scilit:
- Gender differences in stress and coping stylesPersonality and Individual Differences, 2004
- Stress manifestation in high school students: An Australian samplePsychology in the Schools, 2003
- Measuring Global Self-Esteem: Construct Validation of a Single-Item Measure and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem ScalePersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2001
- Les liens entre l'autonomie de l'adolescent, la collaboration parentale et la réussite scolaire.Canadian Journal of Behavioural Science / Revue canadienne des sciences du comportement, 2000
- Psychological determinants of adolescent smoking behaviour: A prospective studyAustralian Journal of Psychology, 1998
- An Item Response Theory Analysis of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem ScalePersonality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1997
- Psychosocial correlates of health compromising behaviors among adolescentsHealth Education Research, 1997
- Effectiveness of Four School Health Education Projects Upon Substance Use, Self-Esteem, and Adolescent StressHealth Education Quarterly, 1988
- Assessment of major and daily stressful events during adolescence: The Adolescent Perceived Events Scale.Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1987
- Stress and Burnout Amoung Preadolescent and Early Adolescent Gifted Students: A Preliminary InvestigationThe Journal of Early Adolescence, 1986