Minority Stress Scale for the Deaf (MSS-D): an adapted measure for quantifying stress associated with audism

The purpose of this study was to assess stress among culturally Deaf, physically deaf, and hard-of-hearing (D/deaf/HH) individuals. Given that these individuals are minorities within a hearing-based society, we adapted the Minority Stress Scale to examine the stress related to perceived audism from others (i.e., the feeling that they are being treated with an inferior bias due to their lack of hearing) and the stress related to internalized audism (i.e., an internal inferior bias against their own lack of hearing). A sample of 104 D/deaf/HH individuals completed this adapted scale (Minority Stress Scale for the Deaf [MSS-D]); the Parental Audism and Linguisticism Frequency Scale (PALFS); the Social, Attitudinal, Familial, and Environmental Acculturative Stress Scale-Deaf (SAFE-D); and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21). Factor analysis and reliability analyses revealed two internally consistent factors for the MSS-D: Stress from Anticipation of Experiencing Audism and Stress from Internalized Audism. As evidence of construct validity, the MSS-D subscales were moderately to strongly correlated with the PALFS and SAFE-D subscales, and they were weakly to moderately correlated with the DASS-21 subscales.