The Chinese Parental Stress Scale: psychometric evidence using Rasch modeling on clinical and nonclinical samples

In this study, we examined the psychometric properties of the Parental Stress Scale (PSS; Berry & Jones, 1995) with Chinese parents. Participants included 162 parents recruited through primary schools and 38 parents with children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Rasch analysis results indicated that 2 items were outside the accepted fit statistics range and that the Likert scale response categories were not functioning properly. We identified a reduced 16-item scale with 5 categories as unidimensional, with a person reliability of .86; the Likert scale response categories worked well. The revised PSS correlated with measures of child behavior and parenting stress and could differentiate between the 2 groups of parents.