State-trait anxiety inventory (STAI)

The Italian version of State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI, form Y) [15, 16] is a commonly used measure of anxiety, with good psychometric properties. The STAI form Y has 40 items, 20 items developed to measure the state anxiety (S-A) and 20 items developed to measure the trait anxiety (T-A). Items of the S-A scale assess intensity of current feelings (“at this moment”) and are rated on a 4-point scale: 1 = “not at all”, 2 = “somewhat”, 3 = “moderately”, and 4 = “very much”. Items of the T-A scale assess frequency of feelings “in general” and are rated on a 4-point scale: 1 “almost never”, 2 = “sometimes”, 3 = “often”, and 4 = “almost always”. For both scales, higher scores indicate greater anxiety, state or trait respectively. In the present paper, only the S-A was administered as a measure of current anxiety symptoms. Observed Cronbach’s alphas was .912. A value of 40 can be considered a clinical threshold value (cut-off) predictive of anxiety symptoms, distinguishing three levels of severity: mild (from 40 to 50), moderate (from 51 to 60) and severe (scores greater than 61) [17].