Toward A Stress Scale for African–American Women

Abstract

The current study seeks to understand the nature of stress among African–American women and to develop a preliminary stress measure for this population. The African–American Women's Stress Scale (AWSS) was derived by eliciting stressors from 47 African–American women. AWSS stressors reflect economic, role and relationship, work-related, and ethnic issues, and nearly half are ongoing situations rather than change events. The ability of the AWSS to relate to depression was examined in a second, nonoverlapping sample ( n = 68). Correlational analysis indicated correlations of .58–.70 between depression scores and scores on the AWSS. Findings provide support for the utility of the AWSS and underscore the inadequacy of stress models that are based on change or undesirable change.