Validation of the Spanish version of the Perceived Stress Questionnaire

Objective: To validate in Spanish the Perceived Stress Questionnaire (PSQ), a questionnaire to assess stress for research purposes in psychosomatic patients. Method: The test was administered to a healthy population (N=174) of nursing students and health workers and to a clinical sample (N=80) of patients attending a psychiatric outpatient consultation. Results: Concurrent validity: General and Recent PSQ scores correlated high with trait anxiety (r=.65), moderate with depression (r=.46) and psychological disturbance (r=.51) and poor with state anxiety (r=.22). Predictive validity: PSQ scores were higher in ‘‘psychiatric cases’’ than in ‘‘psychiatric noncases’’ (P