Psychometric evaluation of three versions of the Italian Perceived Stress Scale

Stress is measured through the use of tools that allow detection in large samples, and the search effort is directed to validating tools to ensure that they are predictable. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) is one of the three most commonly used tools to measure perceived stress. The three versions of the PSS have never been evaluated for use with Italian workers. Therefore, the overall aims of this study are to translate and clarify the psychometric properties of the Italian versions, known as IPSS-14, IPSS-10, and IPSS-4 for use with Italian precarious workers. A sample of 649 precarious workers (mean age = 39.6, SD = 10.1) participated in this study, which consisted of 393 males and 256 females. The sample was randomly split into two for exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to investigate the PSS structure. The two-factor models for the three Italian versions of PSS showed a better fit than the single-factor models. The reliability was high for IPSS-14 and IPSS-10. The results suggest that the psychometric properties of IPSS-10 are greater than those of IPSS-14 and IPSS-4. Therefore, IPSS-10 can be reliably used to measure perceived stress and is a suitable tool to incorporate the support/intervention programs for Italian precarious workers.