Perceived stress and health-related outcomes in a Swiss population sample

This cross-sectional study aimed at analysing the perception of stress and its relation to health-related outcomes in the Swiss population. A sample d rawn from this population included 992 participants aged 15 to 64 years. Th e interview covered socio-demographic data, perceived stress, psychological and somatic symptoms as well as perceived general health status. Patterns of stress were grouped into three categories. "Stressed" included persons w ho reported that they felt overwhelmed by stressful situations during the p revious month. "Challenged" included those who reported that they experienc ed stressful situations but could manage those well. "Not stressed" consist ed of respondents who did not experience stress. Results indicated that 38. 6% of the sample reported being stressed, 33.3% challenged and 28.1% not st ressed. Analysis of the distribution of perceived stress showed that, in pa rticular, women, younger people, single parents, students and self-employed felt stressed relatively often. In a logistic regression analysis, age and gender remained the factors most strongly associated with self-perceived s tress. Perception of stress was not related to subjective ratings of genera l health. However, respondents in the stressed category were more likely th an their counterparts to indicate various clinically relevant symptoms.