Measuring stress

• The social readjustment rating scale (SRRS Holmes and Rahe 1967) is a self-report scale used to measure stress in relation to life changes
• The social readjustment rating scale (SRRS Holmes and Rahe 1967) identifies 43 major life changes and assigns each of them a life change unit (LCU) score
• The social readjustment rating scale (SRRS Holmes and Rahe 1967) was established by asking hundreds of participants to rate major life changes on a scale of 1 - 1000 with the baseline of marriage acting as the middle point at 500; the mean of these scores was then calculated and adjusted to fit on a scale of 1 - 100 and put in rank order from least to most stressful according to the mean scores of the participants
• The social readjustment rating scale (SRRS Holmes and Rahe 1967) is often used by asking participants to recall all life changes they have experienced in the past 12 months and then adding the life change units (LCU) each one scores to work out an overall rating
• Social readjustment rating scale (SRRS Holmes and Rahe 1967) score meanings' 0-150 is safe, 150-300 is likely to experience illness, and 300+ is extremely likely to experience illness
• The Hassles and uplifts scale (HSUP Kanner 1981) measures and individual's stress in terms of their daily hassles
• the hassles and uplifts scale (HSUP Kanner 1981) identifies 117 hassles and 7 areas of life where daily hassles are experienced

  1. work
  2. health
  3. family
  4. friends
  5. environment
  6. practical considerations
  7. chance occurrences
• The hassles and uplifts scale (HSUP Kanner 1981) measures hassles on a 3 point scale; somewhat, moderate, and extreme
• The hassles and uplifts scale (HSUP Kanner 1981) also identifies 135 uplifts
• skin conductance rate is a physiological measure of stress that is measures sweat produced during the fight or flight response
• Skin conductance rate is often measured on the hands as it is the most sensitive part to increased sweating brought on by fight or flight
• Skin conductance rate is measured by a weak electrical change being applied to the hand to see how much electricity is conducted by the sweat
• Skin conductance is measured in microsiemens which are amplified and displayed on a screen
• Tonic conductance is the baseline level of conductance with no stressor
• Phasic conductance is the level of conductance when a stressor is present
• Skin conductance is used during polygraphs
• Blood pressure is used to measure stress as it increases in stressful situations however this can be impacted by white coat syndrome when the blood pressure increases simply because the individual is aware it is being measured
• Adrenaline and cortisol levels increase during acute and chronic stress respectively and can be measured in urine, blood and saliva however levels vary naturally throughout the day so to establish a baseline measurements must be taken multiple times in a day
• Self report measures strength; can be done in the form of questionnaire which can be easily sent to many participants at once quickly and for a low cost
• Self report measures strength; can be easily repeated
• Self-report measures weakness; highly subjective as questions can be interpreted differently by different participants for example some individuals may see events such as marriage as more stressful than others lowering the reliability of the data and opening it to social desirability bias
• self-report measures weakness; both the social readjustment rating scale (SRRS Holmes and Rahe 1967) and the Hassles and Uplifts scale (HSUP Kanner 1981) can both be seen as useful measures of stress however are difficult to use together as one measures life changes and the other measures daily hassles meaning the concepts cannot be combined to create a holistic approach to stress measuring both factors and their contributions to stress related illness
• Self report measures weakness; open to social desirability bias especially when considering stress as people experiencing a high level of cumulative stress are more likely to overestimate their stress level other stressful situations
• Physiological measures strength; highly objective as it cannot be impacted by the personal biases of the researcher or the participant
• Physiological measures weakness; lacks depth as it cannot pinpoint the exact source of the client's stress unlike self report measures can
• Physiological measures weakness; methods such as measuring blood pressure can be impacted by white coat syndrome which is when an individuals blood pressure increases because they know it is being measured
• Physiological measures weakness; not reliable as there are individual differences in responses such as different rates of skin conductance