Anxiety in Brief: Assessment of the Five-Item Trait Scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory in South Africa

Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 May 1;20(9):5697. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20095697.

Abstract

The current study examined the psychometric properties of a short form of the trait scale of the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Participants consisted of a convenience sample of students (n = 322) who completed the five-item version of the trait scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Perceived Stress Scale, the nine-item version of the Beck Hopelessness Scale, the 10-item version of the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale, and the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Checklist. We used classical test theory and item response theory (Rasch and Mokken analyses) to examine the psychometric properties of a previously proposed five-item version of this scale. These approaches confirmed that the five-item measure of anxiety had satisfactory reliability and validity, and also confirmed that the five items comprised a unidimensional scale.

Keywords: Mokken analysis; Rasch analysis; STAI-T5; classical test theory; psychometric properties; trait anxiety.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Anxiety Disorders
  • Anxiety* / diagnosis
  • Anxiety* / epidemiology
  • Humans
  • Psychometrics / methods
  • Reproducibility of Results
  • South Africa
  • Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic* / diagnosis
  • Stress Disorders, Post-Traumatic* / epidemiology

Grants and funding

This research was funded by the South African Medical Research Council (SIR grant).