Preliminary psychometric properties of the Arabic version of Sheu and colleagues Perceived Stress Scale among nursing students at Jordanian universities

PURPOSE: Nursing is known to be a stressful profession, as it necessitates constant interaction with different individuals in an environment that is described as highly stressed. The stress phenomenon mainly affects the students of nursing more than other health-related students. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), which is developed by Sheu and colleagues represents the most implemented instrument to examine stress among nursing students that belong to different cultures in different countries. Previous studies have not fully examined the psychometric properties of the PSS, especially in the Arab World. Therefore, this study aims to assess the psychometric properties of the Arabic version of Sheu and colleagues Perceived Stress Scale (PSS), which is used to measure the clinical stress among nursing students. PATIENTS AND METHODS: This methodological study utilized a cross-sectional design to test the PSS preliminary psychometric properties among 320 nursing students at 5 Jordanian universities. RESULTS: The Arabic version of the PSS showed high internal consistency reliability (Cronbach’s α was 0.90 in addition to an excellent content validity (CVI was 0.94). The exploratory factor analysis indicated that 54.54% of the total variance was accounted for by the five factors model, which confirmed the construct validity of the Arabic version of PSS. The findings of this study revealed that the Arabic version of PSS can be appropriately implemented among nursing students. CONCLUSION: This study supports and recommends the use of the Arabic version of PSS to measure clinical stress among nursing students at Jordanian Universities.