A Japanese version of the perceived stress scale: translation and preliminary test

This paper describes the development of a Japanese version of the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS). Four independent Japanese translations were made and used to develop a single Japanese version. This was back-translated into English. Discrepancies between the original and the back-translation were identified. The Japanese version was altered accordingly, and again back-translated. This forward-backward process was repeated until satisfactory agreement was attained. The PSS was administered to 38 native English speakers and the Japanese version (PSSJ) to 23 native Japanese. High Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was shown for both versions. Factor analysis revealed that the PSS and PSSJ showed an almost identical factor structure. Therefore, the equivalence between the PSS and PSSJ and the validity for each scale was underpinned.