The derivation of a brief Student Nurse Stress Index

The lack of an adequate measure of perceived sources of stress for student nurses led to the construction of the Student Nurse Stress Index (SNSI). Re sponses from 235 first-year student nurses to 35 items from the Beck and Sr ivastava Stress Inventory (Beck, and Srivastava, 1991), and 15 new items, w ere subjected to exploratory factor analysis using principal components ana lysis and oblimin rotation. A reliable 22-variable solution with a simple o blique structure including Academic load, Clinical sources, Interface worri es, and Personal problems factors was obtained in this initial sample, and confirmed at an exploratory level in a further independent validation sampl e of 188 first-year students. Confirmatory factor analysis established the four-factor model in the first sample, but required that three variables lo ad onto more than one factor. This more complex four-factor model was confi rmed using independent data from the validation sample, and the total invar iance of factor loadings and factor covariances of this more complex four-f actor model was established in both data sets simultaneously using multi-sa mple techniques. The SNSI shows cross-sample factor congruence, good intern al reliabilities, and concurrent and discriminant validity across a range o f reporting conditions.