Preprimary stress questionnaire: A tool to assess stress in preprimary school students

Aim: Students of preprimary age group are facing stress in school because of life events such as curricular and social factors. Prolonged stress of those children may lead to different types of health hazards in future life. Thus, the aim of this study was to construct a questionnaire which may be used to find out severity of stress among preprimary students. Methods: It was a descriptive study based on teacher report. Five hundred and five students were selected by random sampling for this study by questionnaire method, and the report was given by teachers. The questionnaire used for this study was preprimary stress questionnaire. After collection of data, the questionnaires were analyzed for Cronbach's alpha (α) coefficient for reliability and content validity index (CVI) for validity of questionnaire. Result: Corrected item-total correlation of all items was more than 0.3, so all items were included in questionnaire. Cronbach's alpha coefficient of questionnaire was found to be 0.925 and it lied between 0.87 and 1. Conclusion: After data analysis it was found that the Cronbach's alpha coefficient value was excellent and CVI was acceptable. Thus, this questionnaire was a reliable and valid instrument for assessment of severity of stress in preprimary school students, so that the future health hazards of children are prevented.