Measuring Perceived Social Support and Perceived Stress Among Primary School Children in The Netherlands

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.