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Perceived Stress Scale (PSS)
Potentially stressful life events are thought to increase risk for disease when one perceives that the demands these events impose tax or exceed a person’s adaptive capacity (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). In turn, the perception of stress may influence the pathogenesis of physical disease by causing negative affective states (e.g., feelings of anxiety and depression), which then exert direct effects on physiological processes or behavioral patterns that influence disease risk (Cohen, Janicki-Deverts, & Miller, 2007). The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) measures psychological...
Cohen-Hoberman Inventory of Physical Symptoms (CHIPS)
Evidence of an association between recent stressful life events and a variety of psychological and physical disorders has steadily been increasing. The Cohen-Hoberman Inventory of Physical Symptoms (CHIPS) is a list of 39 commonn physical symptoms. Items were selected so as to exclude items of an obvious psychological nature. Each item is reated on a 5-point Likert scale for how much that item bothered or distressed the individual during the past two weeks.
Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (ISEL)
The Interpersonal Support Evaluation List (ISEL) is concerned with ways in which others affect persons' responses to stressful events. The ISEL consists of a list of 40 statements concerning the perceived availability of potential social resources. The items are counterbalanced for desirability; that is half the items are positive statements about social relationships while the other half are negative statements. Items each fall into four 10-item subscales; tangible support, appraisal support, self-esteem support, belonging support.
Cancer Treatment Survey (CaTS)
People receiving cancer treatment commonly experience pre-treatment anxiety and report numerous distressing physical and psychosocial sequelae to treatment. Many feel anxious and fearful about the prospect of chemotherapy. High levels of clinically significant anxiety (47%) have been observed in women with early breast cancer about to commence adjuvant chemotherapy. Common physical sequelae to chemotherapy include nausea, fatigue, hair loss and predisposition to infection, while non-physical sequelae include treatment related anxiety, needle phobias and concerns about...
General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE)
The construct of Perceived Self-Efficacy reflects an optimistic self-belief (Schwarzer, 1992). This is the belief that one can perform a novel or difficult tasks, or cope with adversity -- in various domains of human functioning. Perceived self-efficacy facilitates goal-setting, effort investment, persistence in face of barriers and recovery from setbacks. It can be regarded as a positive resistance resource factor. Ten items from the General Self-Efficacy Scale (GSE) are designed to tap this construct. Each item refers to successful coping and implies an internal-stable attribution of...
Berlin Social Support Scales (BSSS)
The Berlin Social Support Scales (BSSS, Schwarzer & Schulz, 2000) were developed based on theoretical considerations and reviews of established measurement instruments for social support.
All items were discussed by an expert panel and partly revised after a pilot study with cancer patients. Items of the received/provided support subscales referring to unfavorable support behavior of the partner were omitted from our study after patients expressed rejection of those statements.
The answering format is the same for all subscales: Patients rate their agreement with the...
Fear of Physician (FOP)
Many people are fearful and/or anxious about communicating with their physician. It is believed that this fear/anxiety is in some part a function of the way the physician communicates with the patient. This Fear of Physician (FOP) instrument was developed to measure that feeling. The FOP is an extension of the 5-item state anxiety measure developed by Spielberger (1966).
Richmond Humour Assessment Instrument (RHAI)
The Richmond Humor Assessment Instrument (RHAI) is a 16-item self-report measure that uses a 5-point Likert format. The instrument was developed by Richmond (1999) to measure an individual's predisposition to reenact humour messages during an interaction. Researchers believe that teaching people to be humerous can help with stress and family problems, make them more popular, and they will have improved self-concepts.
Willingness To Communicate (WTC)
The study of various general orientations toward communication has held an important place in communication research for over a half-century. This research has been conducted under a wide variety of conceptualizations. These have included stage fright, speech anxiety, communication apprehension, shyness, reticence, unwillingness to communicate, willingness to communicate, talkativeness, verbal activity, vocal activity, and a number of others. Although these are all related constructs, there are important distinctions among them. One group of constructs relates to anxiety or apprehension...
Tolerance for Disagreement Scale (TFD)
The Tolerance For Disagreement (TFD) Scale is designed to measure the degree to which an individual can tolerate other people disagreeing with what the individual believes to be true. This conceptualization is similar to that of argumentativeness. People with high argumentativeness are likely to be able to deal with more disagreement than those people who are low in argumentativeness. It is believed that conflict in interpersonal communication is in large part (in conjunction with the level of liking between the people) a function of the tolerance of disagreement of the interactants.
