Abstract
Stress and social support play major roles in children’s lives and are both associated with psychological and physical well-being. Although these constructs have been shown to explain and predict well-being and health in adults and adolescents, the evidence for children is limited. From a developmental perspective, it would be premature to assume similar models for social support, stress and well-being for children as were established for adolescents and adults. Recently, the interest in child self-reports in the assessment of constructs related to well-being has increased, and research has shown that children can provide reliable and accurate information. Since no self-report questionnaires to measure stress and social support among children aged 8–11 year are available in the Netherlands, two questionnaires were adjusted for use in this younger age group and examined for internal consistency and test-retest reliability among 223 primary school children. In addition, an exploratory factor analysis (PAF) was conducted to demonstrate the dimensionality of the questionnaires. Overall, moderate to good internal consistency and test-retest reliability were found for both questionnaires. The findings suggest that both show potential as feasible and psychometrically adequate self-report measures for primary school children.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Allen, J. (1988). Children’s cognition of stressful events. Day Care & Early Education, 16(2), 21–25.
Barrera, M., Jr. (1986). Distinction between social support concepts, measures, and models. American Journal of Community Psychology, 14(4), 413–445.
Bell, A. (2007). Designing and testing questionnaires for children. Journal of Research in Nursing, 12(5), 461–469.
Boekaerts, M., & Röder, I. (1999). Stress, coping, and adjustment in children with a chronic disease: a review of the literature. Disability and Rehabilitation, 21(7), 311–337.
Bokhorst, C. L., Westenberg, P. M., Oosterlaan, J., & Heyne, D. A. (2008). Changes in social fears across childhood and adolescence: age-related differences in the factor structure of the fear survey schedule for children-revised. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 22, 135–142.
Bokhorst, C. L., Sumter, S. R., & Westenberg, P. M. (2009). Social support from parents, friends, classmates, and teachers in children and adolescents aged 9 to 18 years: Who is perceived as most supportive? Social Development, 19(2), 417–426.
Booth, A., Granger, D. A., & Shirtcliff, E. A. (2008). Gender- and age-related differences in the association between social relationship quality and trait levels of salivary cortisol. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 18(2), 239–260.
Borgers, N., Hox, J., & Sikkel, D. (2004). Response effects in surveys on children and adolescents: the effect of number of response options, negative wording, and neutral mid-point. Quality and Quantity, 38, 17–33.
Cohen, S., & Wills, T. A. (1985). Stress, social support and the buffering hypothesis. Psychological Bulletin, 98(2), 310–357.
Compas, B. E. (1987). Stress and life events during childhood and adolescence. Clinical Psychology Review, 7, 275–302.
Cremeens, J., Eiser, C., & Blades, M. (2006). Characteristics of health-related self-report measures for children aged three to eight years: a review of the literature. Quality of Life Research, 15, 739–754.
Ellis, A. A., Nixon, R. D. V., & Williamson, P. (2009). The effects of social support and negative appraisals on acute stress symptoms and depression in children and adolescents. British Journal of Clinical Psychology, 48, 347–361.
Evers, A., Van Vliet-Mulder, J. C., & Groot, C. J. (2000). Documentatie van tests en testresearch in Nederland (Documentation of tests and test research in The Netherlands). Assen: Van Gorcum.
Fuchs, M. (2005). Children and adolescents as respondents. Experiments on question order, response order, scale effects and the effect of numeric values associated with the response options. Journal of Official Statistics, 21(4), 701–725.
Garnefski, N., & Diekstra, R. F. W. (1996). Perceived social support, from family, school, and peers: relationship with emotional and behavioral problems among adolescents. American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 35(12), 1657–1664.
Guralnick, M. J., Hammond, M. A., Neville, B., & Connor, R. T. (2008). The relationship between sources and functions of social support and dimensions of child- and parent-related stress. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 52(12), 1138–1154.
Helsen, M., Vollebergh, W., & Meeus, W. (2000). Social support from parents and friends and emotional problems in adolescence. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 29(3), 319–335.
Hoefnagels, C., Meesters, C., & Simenon, J. (2007). Social support as predictor of psychopathology in the adolescent offspring of psychiatric patients. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 16, 91–101.
Ingerski, L. M., Shaw, K., Gray, W. N., & Janicke, D. M. (2010). A pilot study comparing traumatic stress symptoms by child and parent report across pediatric chronic illness groups. Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 31(8), 1–7.
Kraag, G., Meesters, C., Van Bekkum, C., Fekkes, M., Kok, G., & Huijer Abu-Saad, H. (submitted). The Development of the MUSIC, a short questionnaire for the assessment of stress symptoms in preadolescents.
Kudielka, B. M., Buske-Kirschbaum, A., Hellhammer, D. H., & Kirschbaum, C. (2004). Differential heart rate reactivity and recovery after psychosocial stress (TSST) in healthy children, younger adults, and elderly adults: the impact of age and gender. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 11(2), 116–121.
Lazarus, R. S. (1966). Psychological stress and the coping process. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Lippman, L. H., Moore, K. A., & McIntosh, H. (2011). Positive indicators of child well-being. A conceptual framework, measures, and methodological issues. Applied Research Quality of Life. doi:10.1007/s11482-011-9138-6.
Malecki, C. K., & Demaray, M. K. (2002). Measuring perceived social support: development of the child and adolescent social support scale (casss). Psychology in the Schools, 39(1), 1–18.
Neupert, S. D., Almeida, D. M., & Charles, S. T. (2007). Age differences in reactivity to daily stressors: the role of personal control. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 62B(4), 216–225.
Notaro, P. C., Gelman, S. A., & Zimmerman, M. A. (2001). Children’s understanding of psychogenic bodily reactions. Child Development, 72(2), 444–459.
Perrin, S., Smith, P., & Yule, W. (2000). Practitioner review: the assessment and treatment of post- traumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 41(3), 277–289.
Rajmil, L., Fernandez, E., Gispert, R., Rue, M., Glutting, J. P., Plasencia, A., et al. (1999). Influence of proxy respondents in children’s health interview surveys. Epidemiology and Community Health, 53, 38–42.
Rebok, G., Riley, A., Forrest, C., Starfield, B., Green, B., Robertson, J., et al. (2001). Elementary school-aged children’s reports of their health: a cognitive interviewing study. Quality of Life Research, 10, 59–70.
Reevy, G. M., & Maslach, C. (2001). Use of social support: gender and personality differences. Sex Roles, 44, 437–459.
Schaffer, H. R. (1996). Social development. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Skok, A., Harvey, D., & Reddihough, D. (2006). Perceived stress, perceived social support, and well- being among mothers of school-aged children with cerebral palsy. Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, 31(1), 53–57.
Steinberg, L., & Monahan, K. C. (2007). Age differences in resistance to peer influence. Developmental Psychology, 43(6), 1531–1543.
Stevens, J. (1992). Applied multivariate statistics for the social sciences. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Stevens, K. (2009). Developing a descriptive system for a new preference-based measure of health-related quality of life for children. Quality of Life Research, 18, 1105–1113.
Theunissen, N. C. M., Vogels, T. G. C., Koopman, H. M., Verrips, G. H. W., Zwinderman, K. A. H., Verloove-Vanhorick, S. P., et al. (1998). The proxy problem: child report versus parent report in health-related quality of life research. Quality of Life Research, 7, 387–397.
Toyama, N. (2010). Japanese children’s and adults’ awareness of psychogenic bodily reactions. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 34(1), 1–9.
United Nations. (2009). United Nations treaty collection: Status of treaties: Convention on the rights of The child. Retrieved from http://treaties.un.org/Pages?viewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=IV-11&chapter+4&lang=en#top
Van Sonderen, E. (1993). Het meten van sociale steun met de Sociale Steun Lijst-Interacties en Sociale Steun Lijst-Discrepanties. (Measurement of social support with the social support inventory-interactions and the social support inventory-discrepancies). Groningen: Noordelijk Centrum voor Gezondheidsvraagstukken.
Vranceanu, A., Hobfoll, S. E., & Johnson, R. J. (2007). Child- multi-type maltreatment and associated depression and PTSD symptoms: the role of social support and stress. Child Abuse & Neglect, 31, 71–84.
Washington, T. D. (2009). Psychological stress and anxiety in middle to late childhood and early adolescence: manifestations and management. Journal of Pediatric Nursing, 24(4), 302–313.
Whiteman, D., & Green, A. (1997). Wherein lies the truth? Assessment of agreement between parent proxy and child respondent. International Journal of Epidemiology, 26(3), 855–859.
Wong, M., Ratner, J., Gladstone, K. A., Davtyan, A., & Koopman, C. (2010). Children’s perceived social support after a parent is diagnosed with cancer. Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 17, 77–86.
Acknowledgments
The authors wish to thank C. C. A. van Bekkum and G. Kraag, authors of the MUSIC, and E. van Sonderen, author of the Sociale Steun Lijst. This research was funded by ZonMw (project 15700.2012).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Snoeren, F., Hoefnagels, C. Measuring Perceived Social Support and Perceived Stress Among Primary School Children in The Netherlands. Child Ind Res 7, 473–486 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-013-9200-z
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12187-013-9200-z