Stress among university students has emerged as a significant public health concern, particularly in low- and middle-income countries like India, where academic competition, performance pressure, socio-economic constraints, and limited psychological services converge to heighten vulnerability.

Several studies have confirmed the association between academic stress and adverse mental health outcomes among Indian students. Deb et al. found that high levels of academic stress strongly correlate with anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation in school and college populations [6] . Similarly Kumar and Bhukar emphasized that academic stress not only affects psychological well-being but also impairs academic performance, motivation, and interpersonal functioning [7] . Despite these findings, a critical gap persists in the assessment of student stress. Many widely used stress scales, such as the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) or the Student Stress Inventory, were developed in Western contexts and lack adequate validation for Indian populations. Responding to these challenges, researchers advocate for indigenously constructed, psychometrically robust instruments. Kumar [8] stresses that local relevance and cultural sensitivity are essential for accurate diagnosis and intervention. The MASS battery, including the SPS, is designed in this context to meet these needs.

The SPS-13 was developed as part of the MASS project to address the need for a culturally relevant and developmentally appropriate measure of stress among Indian university students.

Development Process:

Refinement—Through multiple feedback rounds and workshops focusing on clarity, redundancy, and cultural relevance, the item set was refined to 13 core items. Here is a publication-ready paragraph for your manuscript that explains the rationale behind reducing the number of items from 22 to 13 in the Scale for Psychological Stress (SPS). These items capture psychological (cognitive, emotional, behavioral) physiological, and social responses to stress. However, through iterative development involving multiple expert reviews and structured feedback workshops with students and clinicians, several issues were identified that warranted item refinement. Specifically, items exhibiting redundancy, low conceptual clarity, or limited cultural relevance were flagged for removal. Redundant items often overlapped semantically with other items without contributing unique variance, while certain items were found to be less interpretable across linguistic and regional student populations. Emphasis was placed on retaining items with high item-total correlations, strong factor loadings, and broad applicability across psychological, somatic, and behavioral stress domains. This rigorous reduction process led to the refinement of the SPS to a concise 13-item version, which preserved the scale’s psychometric robustness while improving its usability, interpretability, and acceptability in digital and academic contexts.

Out of 520 university students approached, 442 completed the digital self-assessment (response rate: 85%). Of these, 238 (53.8%) were female and 204 (46.2%) were male. All participants were between 18 and 30 years of age, met inclusion criteria, and provided informed consent. To ensure anonymity, no personally identifiable information was collected.

The Scale for Psychological Stress (SPS-13) was administered to all 442 participants to assess psychometric properties. The scale showed excellent internal consistency with a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.941, indicating strong reliability. The mean total stress score was 25.6 (SD = 6.8), reflecting a moderate level of perceived stress. Distribution analysis showed approximate normality (skewness = 0.12, kurtosis = −0.35).

The most frequently reported moderate to severe symptoms included:

Other significant symptoms:

These patterns reveal a multidimensional impact of stress, including affective, somatic, cognitive, and behavioral domains.

The findings from the present study offer compelling evidence for the reliability, validity, and clinical applicability of the Scale for Psychological Stress (SPS-13) among university students in India. With a high response rate of 85% (442/520), the study achieved robust participation, ensuring the representativeness of the sample. The internal consistency of the scale was excellent (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.941), exceeding the conventional threshold of 0.70 and indicating a high level of coherence among items, consistent with prior psychometric evaluations of stress instruments [9] [10] .

The scale demonstrated a unidimensional structure, as revealed by Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), with a strong Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of 0.958 and significant Bartlett’s test of sphericity. A single dominant factor explained 47.6% of the variance, with all items loading above 0.50—a benchmark for meaningful factor loading [11] . These findings were further substantiated by a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) yielding excellent model fit indices (CFI = 0.986, RMSEA = 0.043), aligning with recommended fit criteria [12] . Collectively, these metrics confirm the construct validity and unidimensionality of the SPS-13, making it suitable for screening perceived stress in university populations.

The mean stress score (25.6, SD = 6.8) indicates a moderate level of perceived stress among the student cohort. Notably, 76% of participants scored above the “normal” threshold, and 14.3% fell into the severe category, suggesting a substantial burden of psychological stress in this population. These findings resonate with recent literature documenting elevated stress levels in university students globally, often driven by academic pressure, financial uncertainty, and post-pandemic transitions [13] - [15] . Elevated stress has been associated with increased psychiatric morbidity, reduced academic performance, and functional decline [15] - [17] , all of which necessitate timely identification and intervention.

The severity classification system used in this study—based on standard deviation stratification—provided a pragmatic approach to interpreting scores. Such stratification, though exploratory, is a widely accepted method in early scale validation and clinical cut-off estimation [18] . Clinical recommendations accompanying each severity band offer an actionable framework for triaging students for intervention, from self-care to professional psychological support.

Importantly, the finding that severe stress was associated with increased psychiatric warning symptoms, reduced resilience, and compromised functioning underscores the interconnected nature of psychological vulnerability. Previous studies have highlighted the predictive utility of stress measures for identifying risk of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation [19] [20] , emphasizing the relevance of early stress detection tools like the SPS-13.

While the psychometric evidence supports the utility of SPS-13, a key limitation is the absence of convergent validity testing against established measures such as the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10). Future studies will aim to address this gap and further examine test-retest reliability, sensitivity to change, and predictive validity over time.

The distribution of self-reported symptoms among university students underscores the pervasive and multidimensional nature of psychological stress. Emotional symptoms were most prominent, with 40% reporting significant emotional impact and 36.7% feeling overwhelmed. Fatigue or lack of energy was similarly prevalent (36.6%), indicating the toll stress takes on students’ physical vitality and daily functioning. These core symptoms were accompanied by notable disturbances in sleep (26.7%) and appetite (20.0%), aligning with established findings that stress disrupts basic physiological regulation [21] [22] .

Importantly, cognitive and affective indicators such as hopelessness (23.4%) and loss of interest (20.0%) may reflect early manifestations of depressive symptoms, while psychological strain (30.0%) and irritability (30.0%) suggest heightened emotional reactivity and impaired self-regulation. Muscle tension and somatic complaints (20.0%) further highlight the somatization of stress, a phenomenon frequently observed in populations under sustained academic or psychosocial pressure [23] . Finally, social withdrawal (13.3%)—though less common—points to behavioral disengagement, which may serve as both a symptom and a risk factor for worsening mental health outcomes [24] .

Collectively, these patterns illustrate the broad spectrum of stress-related symptoms affecting affective ( Table 2 and Table 3 ), somatic, cognitive, and behavioral domains. This reinforces the need for comprehensive screening tools like the SPS-13, which can capture nuanced experiences of distress and guide timely intervention strategies.

A key limitation of the present study is the absence of convergent validity analysis with established stress measurement instruments such as the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10). While the Scale for Psychological Stress (SPS-13) was developed through rigorous item generation and refinement processes tailored to the Indian student population, its psychometric robustness would be further strengthened by demonstrating correlation with standardized and widely used tools. Future validation studies are planned to address this gap through convergent and discriminant validity testing, thereby establishing a more comprehensive evidence base for the SPS-13 ( Table 4 ).

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO): 0.89; Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity: χ² (78) = 612.3, p < 0.001; Eigenvalue (Factor 1): 4.76; Variance Explained: 47.6%

The SPS-13 is an effective digital tool for early screening of stress in university settings. It captures emotional, physical, and behavioral domains of distress, making it suitable for:

Given the high prevalence of moderate to severe stress, university counseling systems should consider using the SPS-13 as part of routine mental health check-ins.

The authors extend their sincere gratitude to the students, faculty, and administrative staff of the KJ Somaiya Institute of Technology, Mumbai for their cooperation and support in data collection.