The following inventory provides you with a professional tool to assess your current level of stress. The perceived stress scale (PSS) is used by clinicians as a way to gauge where stress levels sit.
It may be helpful to take the PSS tests periodically to observe/track how you are tracking in your current situation.
Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)
Overview: The PSS is a widely used measure of perceived stress that asks you to reflect on how often you’ve felt stressed or in control of your life circumstances over the past month.
Why It Works: It’s short (10 items) and provides insight into how you perceive and manage stress, rather than only measuring symptoms. It gives a sense of daily stressors and can help you reflect on your current stress levels without being too clinical.
Scoring: The PSS-10 includes two types of items: six negatively worded items (items 1 to 6 in the list below), and four positively worded items (items 7 to 10 in the list below). Below you will find a rating scale for each section for ease. Once all items are scored, they are summed to produce the total PSS score. There is an example of this process further below.
The questions
Remember, there are no right or wrong answers, and it is a good idea to go with your initial response without overthinking. The questions should be answered according to the below respective scales:
Questions 1 to 6 Scoring
Never=0 Almost Never=1 Sometimes=2 Fairly Often=3 Very Often=4
1. In the last month, how often have you been upset because of something that happened unexpectedly?
2. In the last month, how often have you felt that you were unable to control the important things in your life?
3. In the last month, how often have you felt nervous and “stressed”?
4. In the last month, how often have you found that you could not cope with all the things that you had to do?
5. In the last month, how often have you been angered because of things that were outside of your control?
6. In the last month, how often have you felt difficulties were piling up so high that you could not overcome them?
Questions 7 to 10 Scoring
Never=4 Almost Never=3 Sometimes=2 Fairly Often=1 Very Often=0
7. In the last month, how often have you felt confident about your ability to handle your personal problems?
8. In the last month, how often have you felt that things were going your way?
9. In the last month, how often have you been able to control irritations in your life?
10. In the last month, how often have you felt that you were on top of things?
Putting it together
There are many handouts and printables of this PSS test on the internet, but it doesn’t have to be elaborate or fancy. You can simply jot down the numbers on a pad, provide a score next to each numbered question, and add it up. It’s as simple as that. See the example below. The orange line is where the scoring scale changes as the questions are framed positively using the scoring scale above.
Scoring
In the example above, the score was 18, which is in the “Moderate Stress” range according to the scoring measure (see below). It’s a good idea to do this every month to see how your stress is tracking.
- Low Stress: 0-13
- Moderate Stress: 14-26
- High Stress: 27-40
Printable
If printables are your thing, you can find a printable of the test attached here by Mind Garden. Just note, if you are using this printable, it will ask you to reverse score certain questions, by scoring initially, and then reversing the scores for certain questions.
Come back and see you how you score next month!
Developer of PSS Scale
Cohen, S., & Williamson, G. (1988). Perceived stress in a probability sample of the United States. In S. Spacapan & S. Oskamp (Eds.), The social psychology of health: Claremont Symposium on applied social psychology. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.