Transcultural Validation and Adaptation of the Academic Stress Questionnaire (CEA) in Students of Puerto Rico

Background: There are multiple questionnaires to measure academic stress in university students, which have been used in nursing students. In Puerto Rico, a questionnaire valid in content and reliability was required to measure the variable of academic stress in nursing students. Purpose: The aim of this study was to adapt transculturally and validate the Academic Stress Questionnaire (CEA) for its use in Puerto Rico. Materials and Methods: Used for the first phase of this study consisted in the evaluation of the validity of content and appearance, whereas the second phase was the actual administering of the questionnaire to 20 (twenty) nursing students, to pilot test its internal consistency using the Cronbach’s α test. Results: Validity of content and appearance allowed for the modification of the questionnaire into one, consisting of 42 items, thus eliminating 34 premises from the original 76 items the questionnaire was composed of. Furthermore, the appearance of the questionnaire was modified by placing the measuring scales in columns, adapting social, demographic, and academic data to the required Puerto Rican reality. The sections meant to measure the academic stress variables were left intact, except for the linguistics adaptation, which was accomplished by a team of experts in the Spanish language. With an α global of 0.80 and coefficients larger than 0.7 in the multi-item sub scales, which oscillated between 0.750 and 0.860, the questionnaire provides a high reliability. Conclusion: Although the values reported in this study are somewhat lower than previous research, they were comparable the Cronbach’s Alpha coefficients reported by Cabanach, in which the numbers reported are considered high (α > 0.70) which show acceptable confiability of the subscales included in the study and a high degree of consistency and thus can be relied upon in future research. In synthesis, the Academic Stress Questionnaire (CEA) modified and adapted, thoroughly fulfills the established criteria of confiability and validity to evaluate academic stress of Puertorrican nursing students.

Evaluation of visual stress symptoms in age-matched dyslexic, Meares-Irlen syndrome and normal adults

AIM： To examine the prevalence of dyslexia and Meares-Irlen syndrome（MIS） among female students and determine their level of visual stress in comparison with normal subjects.·METHODS： A random sample of 450 female medical students of King Saud University Riyadh（age range, 18-30y） responded to a wide range of questions designed to accomplish the aims of this study. The detailed questionnaire consisted of 54 questions with 12 questions enquiring on ocular history and demography of participants while 42 questions were on visual symptoms. Items were categorized into critical and non-critical questions（CQ and NCQ） and were rated on four point Likert scale. Based on the responses obtained, the subjects were grouped into normal（control）, dyslexic with or without MIS（Group 1） and subjects with MIS only（Group 2）. Responses were analysed as averages and mean scores were calculated and compared between groups using one way analysis of variance to evaluate total visual stress score（TVSS =NCQ ＋CQ）, critical and non-critical visual stress scores. The relationship between categorical variables such as age, handedness and condition were assessed with Chi-square test.·RESULTS： The completion rate was 97.6% and majority of the respondents（92%） were normal readers, 2%dyslexic and 6% had MIS. They were age-matched. More than half of the participants had visited an eye care practitioner in the last 2y. About 13% were recommendedeye exercises and one participant experienced pattern glare. Hand preference was not associated with any condition but Group 1 subjects（3/9, 33%） were significantly more likely to be diagnosed of lazy eye than Group 2（2/27, 7%） and control（27/414, 7%） subjects. The mean±SD of TVSS responses were 63±14 and it was 44±9for CQ and 19 ±5 for NCQ. Responses from all three variables were normally distributed but the CQ responses were on the average more positive（82%） in Group 2 and less positive（46%） in Group 1 than control. With NCQ,the responses were equally less positive in Group 1 and2 than control. Group 2 subjects showed significantly higher TVSS（P =0.002）, NCQ（P =0.006） and CQ（P =0.008）visual stress scores than control but no difference between Group 1 and control subjects, was observed for all scores（P 〉0.05, for all comparisons）.·CONCLUSION： The prevalence of dyslexia and MIS among Saudi female students was 2% and 6%,respectively. Critical questions performed best for assessing visual stress symptoms in dyslexic and MIS subjects. Generally, students with MIS were more sensitive to visual stress than normal students but dyslexics were more likely to present with a lazy eye than MIS and normal readers.

Brief Screening Tools for Long-Term Sickness Absence Due to Mental Disorders in Public Servants

BACKGROUND: Mental disorders are often a cause of long-term sickness absence (LTSA). Kessler 6 (K6) and the Brief Job Stress Questionnaire (BJSQ) are short mental health assessment questionnaires and widely used for assessing mental health in the workplace. OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the screening performance of these tools for the prediction of LTSA due to mental disorders (LTSA-MD). METHODS: K6 and BJSQ were administered to 19,321 public servants, of whom 131 took LTSA-MD during the study period. A receiver operating characteristic curve was drawn to estimate the area under the curve (AUC), sensitivity, and specificity with optimal cut-off points for K6 and four BJSQ subscales (Job Stressors;Stress Responses;Social Support;and Job Stressors + Social Support). RESULTS: K6 showed the highest AUC, and K6 and the Stress Responses subscale of the BJSQ showed higher AUC and sensitivity than other BJSQ subscales. CONCLUSIONS: The psychological distress experienced at the time, i.e. K6 and the Stress Responses, was the best predictors of LTSA-MD. Using these instant effective tools will enable us to identify high-risk workers, employ suitable interventions to improve mental health at an early stage, and reduce the incidence of LTSA-MD.