Ten questions about how unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloaded your life felt during the last month. It supports self-reflection and does not provide a diagnosis.
Method and scientific sourcesPSS-10 measures perceived stress: how unpredictable, uncontrollable, and overloaded a person found life during the last month. It captures an appraisal of circumstances rather than a count of objectively stressful events.
Each answer is assigned 0 to 4 points according to the instrument's scoring key, then all ten values are added. The possible total ranges from 0 to 40.
We link to the original publication, the official scale page, and studies of the language versions used here.
Sheldon Cohen
Sheldon Cohen, Tom Kamarck, Robin Mermelstein
Sheldon Cohen, Gail Williamson
А. А. Золотарева
О. О. Вельдбрехт, Н. І. Тавровецька
Resources are selected by the topic of stress, never from your answers or score.
How to notice prolonged overload, distinguish stress from other causes of feeling unwell, and build a realistic plan to reduce demands and find support.
How stress can affect physical sensations, why normal tests do not mean symptoms are imagined, and how medical and psychological care can work together.
How to assess your workload, ask for an extension, protect sleep and find support when anxiety and exhaustion interfere with studying and everyday life.
Reflect on emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment in human-service work with the 22-item MBI-HSS.
Complete the 21-item BAI and read a careful, non-diagnostic interpretation of anxiety symptoms experienced during the past month.
Reflect on positive mental wellbeing over the past two weeks with the 14-item Warwick–Edinburgh scale.
Complete the 18-item OCI-R screener and review six symptom dimensions with careful, non-diagnostic interpretation.
Complete the official 20-item PCL-5 past-month PTSD symptom checklist and read a careful, non-diagnostic interpretation.
Complete the seven-item ISI and review a careful interpretation of sleep difficulties over the past two weeks.
Answer five SCOFF questions and read a careful explanation of what a positive eating-disorder screen does and does not mean.
No. It reflects perceived stress during the last month and is not a diagnostic instrument.
The authors do not define diagnostic cut-offs. A higher score reflects more perceived stress, but it needs to be understood in context.
Yes. For a more useful comparison, choose a similar time frame and remember that a change can reflect both circumstances and self-appraisal.
