Development and evaluation of the Civil Servants Stress Scale

Objective To develop a stress scale for civil servants in China and to evaluate reliability and validity of the scale.Methods The Civil Servants Stress Scale(CSSS)was devised and constructed based on literature reviews, questionnaire survey, interviews with civil servants, and professional consultations.The data were collected in a convenience sample of 408 civil servants in the northeast, northwest, north, east, and southwest of China.Through item analysis, exploratory factor analysis and principal component analysis, the items which could evaluate the civil servants' stress with great reliability and validity were selected and retained for the scale.Results The results of item, exploratory factor, and principal component analysis indicated that the CSSS was composed of 38 items and six factors including management and development(10 items), life relationships(5 items), work relationships(5 items), health and responsibility(7 items), economic stress(5 items), and working load(6 items) and all the items could explain 68.498% of the total variance of the scale.The Cronbach's α coefficient of the CSSS was 0.960 and the Cronbach's α coefficients of the six factors ranged from 0.842 to 0.925; the split-half reliability was 0.976, suggesting the CSSS had good reliability.The range of correlation coefficients between the total score and 38 items was 0.502-0.760.The range of communalities was 0.255-0.588 and the range of factor loading was 0.485-0.767.The correlation coefficients between the total score and the six factors ranged from 0.621 to 0.888 and the correlation coefficients between every two of the six factors ranged from 0.348 to 0.776, indicating the CSSS had good validity.Conclusion The preliminary study indicates that the Civil Servants Stress Scale is good in reliability and validity and could be applied to evaluate stress levels among civil servants in China.