Perceived stress scale

Perceived stress was measured using the 10-item PSS.[26] Participants were asked how often they felt or thought a certain way in the past month, using a visual analog scale (0 = never, 1 = almost never, 2 = sometimes, 3 = fairly often, and 4 = very often). Positively worded questions were reverse coded and all values were summed (high score = high perceived stress) with possible scores ranging from 0 to 40. Scores ranging from 0 to 13 were considered low stress, 14–26 were considered moderate stress, and 27–40 were considered high stress.[32]