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Parenting Stress Index
Abidin, R.R. (1990) Parenting Stress Index. Charlottesville, VA: Pediatric Psychology Press.
Summary
The Parenting Stress Index (PSI) is a product of approximately three decades of research, study, and development and has evolved through six refinements. In the manual Richard Abidin states, "The Parenting Stress Index was designed to be an instrument whose primary value would be to identify parent-child systems which were under stress and at risk for the development of dysfunctional parenting behaviors or behavior problems in the child involved." The PSI is recommended for this use as a screening, diagnostic, and research instrument for Euro-American parents of children below ten years of age.
Documentation of the evolution and theoretical rationale is provided in the 74-page manual. PSI scores have been found to be related to involvement in parent education, marital satisfaction, parental role satisfaction, behavioral observations, Bayley Scales of Infant Development scores, and Achenbach Child Behavior Checklist scores.
Reported discriminant validity evidence includes examining PSI scores of mothers of "normal" children and mothers of special-needs children. The PSI was also used successfully to discriminate between physically abusive and nonabusive mothers, amount of husband support, and single and married mothers.
The amount of time required for administering, scoring, and profiling is not indicated.
The normative group consisted of 534 predominantly white parents. A description of the norm group is provided. The normative sample could include the addition of data for nonwhite populations, male parents, age variations of parents, and differentiation of data from parents with higher incomes.
A Spanish translation of PSI has been made but was not commercially available at the end of 1998.
Availability Information
Pediatric Psychology Press
320 Terrell Road West
Charlottesville VA 22901
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign