Rasch analysis of the Perceived Stress Scale: Transformation from an ordinal to a linear measure.

Rasch analysis was conducted to enhance the precision of the widely used 10-item Perceived Stress Scale using two datasets (n = 450 each) randomly selected from samples of the New Zealand general population (n = 1102), New Zealand university students (n = 479) and US university students (n = 396). The best Rasch model fit (χ2(27) = 29.92, p = .36), good person separation reliability (.80) and coverage (98%) of the sample by the scale items were achieved when locally dependent items were combined into subtests. These findings support reliability and internal structural validity of the 10-item Perceived Stress Scale. The instrument precision can be further improved using the ordinal-to-linear conversion tables published here.

What New Zealanders find important to their quality of life: comparisons with international WHOQOL data from 14 other countries.

OBJECTIVE: When the World Health Organization Quality of Life tools were developed by 15 collaborating centres in 14 countries, respondents rated how important they considered various facets of health-related quality of life. The present study compared quality of life importance ratings from New Zealanders with the global data collected 17 years earlier. Possible differences by gender and age were also explored. METHODS: A WHOQOL importance questionnaire was posted to a random sample of 2,000 New Zealanders. The ratings from the 585 questionnaires that were returned were ranked in order of importance and compared with the rankings from the original WHOQOL work. RESULTS: The overall pattern of rankings of importance items was strikingly similar to that of the global data. Some of the few differences included comparatively lower importance ratings by New Zealanders of the facet to be able to work and higher ratings of feeling physically safe and secure. Other differences in importance ratings were also noted by gender and age group. CONCLUSIONS: The overall high similarities of importance rankings with the global dataset suggest that the cross-cultural validity of the instrument may still be current. The few observed differences could reflect aspects unique to New Zealand or the presence of global trends during the 17 years since the original WHOQOL work, highlighting the utility of periodic investigations into the need to update the instrument.

The relationship between quality of life and spirituality, religiousness, and personal beliefs of medical students.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the effects of spirituality, religiousness, and personal beliefs on the quality of life (QOL) of medical students affiliated with a religious faith and those without affiliation. METHODS: Using a cross-sectional design, 275 medical students (78 % response rate) in their fourth and fifth year of study completed the WHOQOL-BREF quality of life instrument and the WHOQOL-SRPB module for spirituality, religiousness, and personal beliefs. RESULTS: For religious students, a larger range of characteristics of existential beliefs were positively related to quality of life. For all students, hope and optimism and meaning of life predicted higher scores on psychological. CONCLUSIONS: For religious and nonreligious medical students, reduced meaning in life and hope were the strongest indicators of psychological distress. Interventions to improve the mental well-being of medical students may be more effective if aimed at teaching students how to find meaning and purpose in their lives and how to foster an enduring sense of hope and optimism.

Noise sensitivity and diminished health: testing moderators and mediators of the relationship.

The concept of noise sensitivity emerged in public health and psychoacoustic research to help explain individual differences in reactions to noise. Noise sensitivity has been associated with health problems, but the mechanisms underlying this relationship have yet to be fully examined. Participants (n = 1102) were residents of Auckland, New Zealand, who completed questionnaires and returned them through the post. Models of noise sensitivity and health were tested in the analyses using bootstrapping methods to examine indirect effects. Results indicated that gender and noise exposure were not significant moderators in the model. Perceived stress and sleep problems were significant mediators of the relationship between noise sensitivity and subjective health complaints, even after controlling for the influence of neuroticism. However, the relationship between noise sensitivity and mental health complaints (anxiety and depression) was accounted for by the variance explained by neuroticism. Overall, this study provides considerable understanding of the relationship between noise sensitivity and health problems and identifies areas for further research in the field.

How religious coping is used relative to other coping strategies depends on the individual's level of religiosity and spirituality.

Results from empirical studies on the role of religiosity and spirituality in dealing with stress are frequently at odds, and the present study investigated whether level of religiosity and spirituality is related to the way in which religious coping is used relative to other coping strategies. A sample of 616 university undergraduate students completed the Brief COPE (Carver in Int J Behav Med 4:92-100, 1997) questionnaire and was classified into groups of participants with lower and higher levels of religiosity and spirituality, as measured by the WHOQOL-SRPB (WHOQOL-SRPB Group in Soc Sci Med 62:1486-1497, 2006) instrument. For participants with lower levels, religious coping tended to be associated with maladaptive or avoidant coping strategies, compared to participants with higher levels, where religious coping was more closely related to problem-focused coping, which was also supported by multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. The results of the present study thus illustrate that investigating the role of religious coping requires more complex approaches than attempting to assign it to one higher order factor, such as problem- or emotion-focused coping, and that the variability of findings reported by previous studies on the function of religious coping may partly be due to variability in religiosity and spirituality across samples.

Access to New Zealand Sign Language interpreters and quality of life for the deaf: a pilot study.

PURPOSE: This paper aims to: (1) explore usage and accessibility of sign language interpreters, (2) appraise the levels of quality of life (QOL) of deaf adults residing in New Zealand, and (3) consider the impact of access to and usage of sign language interpreters on QOL. METHOD: Sixty-eight deaf adults living in New Zealand participated in this study. Two questionnaires were employed: a 12-item instrument about access and use of New Zealand sign language interpreters and the abbreviated version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). RESULTS: The results showed that 39% of this sample felt that they were unable to adequately access interpreting services. Moreover, this group scored significantly lower than a comparable hearing sample on all four WHOQOL-BREF domains. Finally, the findings revealed that access to good quality interpreters were associated with access to health services, transport issues, engagement in leisure activities, gaining more information, mobility and living in a healthy environment. CONCLUSIONS: These findings have consequences for policy makers and agencies interested in ensuring that there is an equitable distribution of essential services for all groups within New Zealand which inevitably has an impact on the health of the individual.