Validity and Reliability of the Persian Version of Medical Student

Identifying the source of stress is essential to design tailored programs for promoting mental health of students. Medical Student Stressor Questionnaire (MSSQ) is an instrument to assess the source of stress in medical students. The aim of the present study was to determine the validity and reliability of the Persian version of the Medical Student Stressor Questionnaire.

This study was a methodological survey with a descriptive, cross-sectional design and was conducted in all medical universities of Tehran in 2016-17. The questionnaire was first back translated from English to Persian. The final Persian version of the questionnaire was completed by 200 fifth- to seventh-year medical students and fourth-year midwifery and nursing students. Exploratory factor analysis was used to assess construct validity, and confirmatory factor analysis was used to determine the number of factors and fitness of the model. The reliability of the instrument was assessed by internal consistency. Test-retest was used to assess temporal repeatability.

The results confirmed the validity and reliability of the Persian version of MSSQ questionnaire. The results of face and content validity confirmed all of the questionnaire items. The Exploratory factor analysis yielded six factors which explained 75.99% of the variance observed. Also, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was 0.92 and intra-class correlation coefficients of the sub-scales were at acceptable level, ranging from 0.81 to 0.90.

This questionnaire is a useful and valid instrument in terms of implementation and ease of scoring, and can assess the stressors in medical students. Therefore, it can be used as a reliable instrument in research