Development of a short form of the adolescent version of the Defense Mechanisms Inventory

Psychometric properties of an English short version of the Trier Inventory for chronic Stress

Background

Although a variety of instruments are available that capture stress experience, the assessment of chronic stress has been hindered by the lack of economical screening instruments. Recently, an English-language version of the Trier Inventory for Chronic Stress (TICS-EN) consisting of 57 items according to a systemic-requirement-resource model of health in nine subdomains of the chronic stress experience has been introduced.

Methods

We constructed a new 9-item short version of the TICS covering all nine subdomains and evaluated it in two samples (total N = 685). We then used confirmatory factor analysis to check factorial validity.

Results

This version showed a highly satisfactory model fit, was invariant across participant gender, demonstrated a very high correlation with the original TICS (r = .94), and showed a moderate correlation (r = .58) with a measure of perceived stress in the past month.

Conclusions

Therefore, this theoretically driven instrument can be recommended as a short version of the TICS in English language.

Norm values and psychometric properties of the short version of the Trier Inventory for Chronic Stress (TICS) in a representative German sample

The Trier Inventory for Chronic Stress (TICS), consisting of 57 items, is an instrument for measuring chronic stress in nine areas. There is also a short form (SSCS) of the TICS consisting of 12 items. However, this 12-item short form does not include all nine areas of the theoretical model and the long version. Therefore, a short version including all nine scales/areas was investigated. The TICS was taken by a sample of N = 2,473 respondents from the general population, aged 14 to 99, selected by random-route sampling. Confirmatory factor analyses applying robust maximum likelihood estimations (MLM) tested the model fit. The one-factor-model proposed by the original authors was tested, and the SSCS showed an unacceptable model fit. For the development of an economical short version of the TICS, including items of the nine areas of chronic stress, nine items based on the alphamax algorithm were selected. The one-factor-model of this new short version of the TICS of nine items provided a good fit for the latent construct and showed good reliability (α = .88). A new and reliable short version of the TICS consisting of only 9 items representing the 9 scales/areas for the assessment of chronic stress was identified to possess a good model fit and good reliability.

On the sins of short-form development

The empirical short-form literature has been characterized by overly optimistic views of the transfer of validity from parent form to short form and by the weak application of psychometric principles in validating short forms. Reviewers have thus opposed constructing short forms altogether, implying researchers are succumbing to an inappropriate temptation by trying to abbreviate measures. The authors disagree. The authors do not oppose the development of short forms, but they do assert that the validity standards for short forms should be quite high. The authors identify 2 general and 9 specific methodological sins characterizing short-form construction and offer methodological suggestions for the sound development of short forms. They recommend a set of 6 a priori steps researchers should consider and 9 methodological procedures researchers can use to develop valid abbreviated forms of clinical-assessment procedures.