Development of a Shortened Version of the Adolescent Stress Questionnaire (ASQ-S): construct validity and sex invariance in a large sample of Swedish adolescents

Factors and indicators	Item loading
F1: Stress of Home Life
Item 1: Arguments at home	0.73
Item 2: Disagreement between your parents	0.66
Item 3: Disagreement between you and your mother	0.81
Item 4: Disagreement between you and your father	0.79
F2: Stress of School Performance
Item 5: Having to study things you do not understand	0.80
Item 6: Teachers expecting too much from you	0.81
Item 7: Keeping up with school work	0.82
F3: Stress of School Attendance
Item 8: Getting up early in the morning to go to school	0.80
Item 9: Going to school	0.79
F4: Stress of Romantic Relationships
Item 10: Getting along with your boy/girl-friend	0.74
Item 11: Breaking up with your boy/girl-friend	0.69
Item 12: Making the relationship with your boy/girlfriend work	0.93
F5: Stress of Peer Pressure
Item 13: Pressure to fit in with peers	0.74
Item 14: Being hassled for not fitting in	0.78
Item 15: Peers hassling you about the way you look	0.70
Item 16: Being judged by your friends	0.64
F6: Stress of Teacher Interaction
Item 17: Lack of respect from teachers	0.77
Item 18: Not being listened to by teachers	0.83
Item 19: Getting along with your teachers	0.74
F7: Stress of Future Uncertainty
Item 20: Concern about your future	0.84
Item 21: Having to make decisions about future work or education	0.79
Item 22: Putting pressure on yourself to meet your future goals	0.82
F8: Stress of School/Leisure Conflict
Item 23: Not getting enough time for leisure	0.87
Item 24: Not enough time for activities outside of school hours	0.84
Item 25: Having too much homework	0.74
F9: Stress of Financial Pressure
Item 26: Not enough money to buy the things you need	0.87
Item 27: Not enough money to buy the things you want	0.89

1 Note. All loadings were positive

TABLE 2.

Descriptive statistics for the total sample and for boys and girls separately

	Total		Girls		Boys
	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	Mean	SD
Depressive symptoms T1	13.12	11.40	17.24	12.54	9.37	8.69
Depressive symptoms T2	14.87	11.34	18.65	12.39	11.49	9.06
Anxiety T1	3.16	3.69	4.32	4.05	2.11	2.96
Anxiety T2	3.50	4.01	4.84	4.35	2.31	3.25
Worry T1	14.51	8.62	17.58	9.21	11.71	6.95
Worry T2	16.53	9.56	20.24	9.82	13.19	7.96
Self-esteem T1	20.77	6.24	18.87	6.48	22.50	5.46
ASQ-S T1	49.46	17.28	53.97	17.33	45.35	16.18

1 Note. Depressive symptoms (CES-DC), Anxiety (OASIS), Worry (PSWQ-C), Self-esteem (RSE).

TABLE 3.

Exploratory Factor Analysis of the Adolescent Stress Questionnaire-Shortened version (ASQ-S) with one to nine factors

Factors	χ²	df	P	CFI	RMSEA [90 % CI]	SRMR	Factor loadings
1	4700.83 (1.6481)	324	<0.001	0.62	0.099 [0.097–0.102]	0.09	0.31–0.73
2	4092.96 (1.5098)	298	<0.001	0.67	0.097 [0.094–0.099]	0.07	0.36–0.83
3	3304.54 (1.5039)	273	<0.001	0.74	0.090 [0.087–0.093]	0.06	0.32–0.86
4	2588.09 (1.4921)	249	<0.001	0.80	0.083 [0.080–0.086]	0.05	0.36–0.86
5	1981.34 (1.4590)	226	<0.001	0.85	0.075 [0.072–0.079]	0.04	0.37–0.89
6	1325.55 (1.4653)	204	<0.001	0.90	0.063 [0.060–0.067]	0.03	0.47–0.88
7	840.85 (1.5017)	183	<0.001	0.94	0.051 [0.048–0.055]	0.02	0.41–0.88
8	485.40 (1.5005)	163	<0.001	0.97	0.038 [0.034–0.042]	0.02	0.33–0.89
9	255.09 (1.5052)	144	<0.001	0.99	0.024 [0.019–0.028]	0.01	0.41–0.93

1 Note. N = 1365. Maximum Likelihood Estimation with Robust standard errors (MLR). The Scaling correction factor for the χ² are shown in parenthesis under the χ² value.

2 CFI, Comparative Fit Index; CI, confidence interval; RMSEA, root-mean-square error of approximation; SRMR, standardized root mean square residual.

TABLE 4.

The nine factored solution of the Adolescent Stress Questionnaire- Shortened version (ASQ-S) for girls and boys separately and measurement invariance across sex

Model	χ²	df	p	CFI	ΔCFI	RMSEA [90 % CI]	SRMR	N
Girls	866.268 (1.400)	288	<0.001	0.953		0.039 [0.036–0.042]	0.035	1296
Boys	641.151 (1.732)	288	<0.001	0.964		0.029 [0.026–0.032]	0.036	1420
Configural	1483.526 (1.566)	576	<0.001	0.958	–	0.034 [0.032–0.036]	0.035
Metric	1496.437 (1.590)	594	<0.001	0.959	0.001	0.033 [0.031–0.036]	0.037
Scalar	1610.069 (1.574)	612	<0.001	0.954	0.005	0.035 [0.033–0.037]	0.037

1 Note. Maximum Likelihood Estimation with Robust standard errors (MLR). The Scaling correction factor for the χ² are shown in parenthesis under the χ² value

2 CFI, Comparative Fit Index; CI, confidence interval; RMSEA, root-mean-square error of approximation; SRMR, standardized root mean square residual

TABLE 5.

ASQ-S scales and sex

Factors	Girls (N=1317)		Boys (N=1451)		df	t	Cohen’s d
Factors	Mean	SD	Mean	SD	df	t	Cohen’s d
F1: Home Life	7.84	3.46	6.30	2.79	2530.65	12.86^{^*}	0.49
F2: School Performance	8.95	3.28	6.87	3.06	2691.87	17.20^{^*}	0.66
F3: School Attendance	4.49	2.22	3.68	2.10	2704.12	9.77^{^*}	0.37
F4: Romantic Relationships	4.03	2.16	3.94	1.94	2652.83	1.08	0.04
F5: Peer Pressure	5.86	2.75	5.36	2.60	2700.18	4.93^{^*}	0.19
F6: Teacher Interaction	4.92	2.45	4.57	2.49	2766	3.68^{^*}	0.14
F7: Future Uncertainty	7.09	3.24	5.52	2.71	2576.35	13.73^{^*}	0.53
F8: School/Leisure Conflict	7.28	3.30	6.01	3.13	2706.63	10.38^{^*}	0.58
F9: Financial Pressure	3.57	2.14	3.12	1.90	2639.55	6.16^{^*}	0.22

1* p ≤ 0.001

TABLE 6.

Results from three separate multiple regression analyses with the ASQ-S subscales as predictor variables and depressive symptoms (CES-DC), anxiety (OASIS) or worry (PSWQ-C) one year later (T2) as dependent variables. Baseline (T1) symptoms were controlled for

	Depressive symptoms T2 (N = 2043)
	B	SE B	β	t
Sex	−3.15	0.42	−0.14^{^**}	−7.60
Age	−0.22	0.30	−0.01	−0.75
T1 depressive symptoms	0.38	0.02	0.50^{^**}	15.98
F1: Stress of Home Life	0.41	0.52	0.02	0.80
F2: Stress of School Performance	0.48	0.48	0.04	0.97
F3: Stress of School Attendance	0.57	0.40	0.05	1.43
F4: Stress of Romantic Relationships	1.72	0.66	0.06^{^**}	2.61
F5: Stress of Peer Pressure	0.73	0.59	0.04	1.24
F6: Stress of Teacher Interaction	0.34	0.55	0.02	0.62
F7: Stress of Future Uncertainty	−0.35	0.42	−0.03	−0.82
F8: Stress of School/Leisure Conflict	0.20	0.39	0.02	0.51
F9: Stress of Financial Pressure	0.05	0.33	0.003	0.14

	Anxiety T2 (N = 2372)
	B	SE B	β	t
Sex	−1.25	0.14	−0.16^{^**}	−8.80
Age	−0.11	0.10	−0.02	−1.05
T1 Anxiety	0.46	0.03	0.40^{^**}	15.86
F1: Stress of Home Life	0.41	0.19	0.07^{^*}	2.23
F2: Stress of School Performance	0.12	0.18	0.03	0.69
F3: Stress of School Attendance	0.25	0.14	0.06^⁺	1.78
F4: Stress of Romantic Relationships	0.28	0.23	0.03	1.23
F5: Stress of Peer Pressure	0.53	0.21	0.08^{^*}	2.54
F6: Stress of Teacher Interaction	−0.30	0.20	−0.04	−1.51
F7: Stress of Future Uncertainty	−0.13	0.15	−0.03	−0.83
F8: Stress of School/Leisure Conflict	0.27	0.15	0.07^⁺	1.82
F9: Stress of Financial Pressure	−0.06	0.12	−0.01	−0.49

	Worry T2 (N = 2107)
	B	SE B	β	t
Sex	−3.37	0.37	−0.17^{^**}	−9.15
Age	0.03	0.25	0.002	0.10
T1 Worry	0.56	0.03	0.49^{^**}	18.99
F1: Stress of Home Life	0.16	0.44	0.01	0.37
F2: Stress of School Performance	0.84	0.44	0.08^⁺	1.90
F3: Stress of School Attendance	−0.13	0.35	−0.01	−0.36
F4: Stress of Romantic Relationships	0.60	0.50	0.03	1.20
F5: Stress of Peer Pressure	0.96	0.42	0.06^{^*}	2.28
F6: Stress of Teacher Interaction	−1.04	0.42	−0.06^{^*}	−2.44
F7: Stress of Future Uncertainty	0.50	0.38	0.05	1.32
F8: Stress of School/Leisure Conflict	0.22	0.33	0.02	0.65
F9: Stress of Financial Pressure	−0.33	0.28	−0.03	−1.18

1 Note. Sample sizes vary since variables that were missing on the independent or on all dependent variables were excluded from the FIML method.

2* p < 0.05

3** p < 0.01

4+ p < 0.10

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.21307/sjcapp-2018-001 | Journal eISSN: 2245-8875

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Language: English

Page range: 4 - 15

Published online: Jul 10, 2018

Published in print: Jan 1, 2018

Published by: Center for Evidence-based Psychiatry

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© 2018 Malin K. Anniko, Katja Boersma, Nikil Ph. L. van Wijk, Don Byrne, Maria Tillfors, published by Center for Evidence-based Psychiatry
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.

Volume 6 (2018): Issue 1 (June 2018)