2.3.2. State‐trait anxiety inventory (STAI FORM TX‐1, TX‐2)

Developed by Spielberger and their friends in 1970, the validity and reliability study of the state‐trait anxiety inventory in Turkey was carried out by Öner and Le Compte in 1985. 19 The state‐trait anxiety inventory is a self‐assessment questionnaire consisting of short expressions. Originally developed for the purpose of investigating anxiety in normal adults, this scale was also found to be suitable for high school students and individuals with psychiatric and physical disorders in subsequent trials. The state‐trait anxiety inventory consists of two parts including the state anxiety nventory and trait anxiety inventory.

The state anxiety inventory: State anxiety refers to transient emotional reactions manifested by the individual to nonconstant situations with varying intensity depending on the situation. In situations where the individual perceives the stressful situation as a threat, the level of “state anxiety” is high and in situations where this danger is not perceived as threatening, the level of state anxiety is low. The state anxiety inventory requires the individual to describe how they feel at a given moment and under certain circumstances, taking into account their feelings about the situation in which they are in. It measures the state of the individual, that is, the level of anxiety in which they are currently in. The intensity of the instantaneous stress, anxiety, and excitement responses caused by conditions increases or decreases over time. Individuals respond to the items on the inventory based on the degree of severity of their emotions at the moment.

The trait anxiety inventory: The trait anxiety inventory requires an individual to describe how they feel in general. The trait anxiety inventory measures anxiety according to how the individual feels “often” and “constantly.” The trait anxiety inventory measures an individual's tendency to see, perceive and interpret most of the situations that are accepted to be neutral according to the objective criteria as threatening and stressful. Individuals respond to the items on the inventory according to the frequency of the emotions generally feel.

Some of the expressions on the inventory are given positive score (which increases the total anxiety score), while the rest are given a negative score (which reduces the total anxiety score). A score between 1 (or −1) and 4 (or −4) is given according to the positive or negative properties of the expression and a constant score of 50 is added to the total score. The highest possible score is 80 and the lowest possible score is 20. The higher the total anxiety score, the greater the anxiety level of the individual taking the inventory. For the trait anxiety inventory, the final score is calculated by adding a constant score of 35. In the interpretation of the scores, the total score value from both scales varies from 20 to 80. A high score indicates a high level of anxiety and a low score indicated a lower level of anxiety. Both scales contain 20 items with two types of expressions. Direct expressions express negative emotions, and reversed expressions express positive emotions. The reversed items on the atate anxiety scale are items 1, 2, 5, 8, 10, 11, 15, 16, 19, and 20. The reversed items on the trait anxiety scale are items 21, 26, 27, 30, 33, 36 and 39. In 1977, Cronbach's alpha value was 0.94 for the State Anxiety Inventory and 0.83 for the trait anxiety inventory. 19 In this study, Cronbach's Alpha value was 0.74 for the State Anxiety Inventory and 0.81 for the trait anxiety inventory.