Short Stress State Questionnaire: Relationships with Reading Comprehension and Land Navigation

Abstract

Stress is an important aspect of operational settings. This article presents the results of a study providing further validation evidence of a short multidimensional self-report measure of stress-state, the Short Stress State Questionnaire (SSSQ; Helton, 2004). We investigated stress changes in two settings. In the first setting, we explored the relationship between the SSSQ and reading comprehension. In the second setting, we explored the relationship between the SSSQ and a real world land navigation task - orienteering. Different task conditions elicited unique patterns of stress-state on the three factors of the SSSQ. Additionally, unique aspects of stress-state were predictive of performance on the two tasks. The 24-item SSSQ appears to be a useful measure of stress-state applicable in a wide variety of settings, including field settings.